APPENDIX.
The reception of this speech revealed the interest of the question, which was not inferior to that of Slavery. The auditory at its delivery, the expressions of the public press, the sensation in England, and letters from all quarters were as instructive as complimentary. Among our own countrymen at home and abroad the satisfaction was general. The people were against war with England, and they were glad to learn that by surrender of the Rebels Maritime Rights had obtained new safeguard, while the British pretext for war was removed.
The scene at the delivery was described by the leading journals.
The correspondent of the New York Tribune telegraphed briefly, but emphatically.
“Senator Sumner’s speech was felt to be exhaustive of the Law of Nations which governed the case of the Trent, and is already ranked in Washington as a state paper upon the question of seizure and search worthy to be placed side by side with the despatches of Madison and Jefferson. It was delivered to a thronged and charmed Senate.”
The correspondent of the New York Herald telegraphed more at length.
“The speech was impressively delivered. The galleries of the Senate were densely crowded. Notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, the ladies’ gallery was filled to overflowing. Mrs. Vice-President Hamlin and a party of her friends occupied seats in the diplomatic gallery, which was also filled. Secretaries Chase and Cameron occupied seats on the floor of the Chamber, where were also the French, Russian, Austrian, Prussian, Danish, and Swedish ministers. Lord Lyons was not present, as etiquette required that he should not be there on such an occasion. The speech was listened to with fixed attention by Senators Bright and Powell and ex-Senator Green. M. Mercier, the French minister, occupied a seat next to Mr. Bright, and exchanged salutations with Mr. Sumner at the conclusion of the speech, as did also most of the other foreign dignitaries.
“Mr. Sumner’s speech has created a marked impression on the public in regard to himself. It has removed much prejudice that existed against him, and added greatly to his reputation as a profound statesman. The impression prevailed, that, with all his learning, his extraordinary acquirements, and splendid talents, he could not avoid the introduction of his peculiar views in reference to Slavery; and on account of the strong Antislavery proclivities of England hitherto, and the sympathy heretofore from this cause existing between leading English politicians and our own Antislavery men of Mr. Sumner’s class, it was apprehended by many that he would be inclined to lean towards Great Britain in this controversy. His course to-day was, therefore, an agreeable surprise. The absence of any allusion in his speech to the Negro Question demonstrated his ability and willingness to rise superior to the one idea attributed to him, and the scathing exposition of British inconsistency in regard to the right of search, and the dignified rebuke he administered to England, exhibited his capacity to regard public affairs with the eye of a genuine statesman.
“The applause accorded to this really great production is universal and unqualified.”
The correspondent of the New York Evening Post gives the following sketch of the scene in a letter.
“In spite of the fog, rain, and mud of this morning, the galleries of the Senate Chamber began to fill at an early hour. In addition to the lounging habitués of the daily sessions, came a crowd which left them no room to lounge. You have only to advertise a speech, and how the life-tide sets towards the Capitol! Mr. Sumner’s splendid oratory always attracts immense audiences, even when his speeches bear upon the unpopular subject of Slavery.
“Most people seemed to think that he was the slave of this one idea, and could only be great when mounted on his hobby. But in his master speech on the Trent affair and its relation to Maritime and International Law he has proved himself to be something more than the accomplished scholar, the eloquent speech-maker, forcing the recognition of his statesmanship from the very mouths of his enemies. This exposition of the triumph of American principles, necessarily less ornate than his more literary productions, is marked by all his usual fastidious strength of style. Vibrating through his voice, every word seemed a live nerve quivering with electric meaning.
“A speech so kind and calm in rebuke, so elaborate in research, so bountiful in proof, so conclusive in argument, coming from the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, and an acknowledged favorite of England, will appeal with strong conviction to her people. Here in Washington its praise is on every tongue. In the dense crowd of the gallery General Fremont was conspicuous, and among the Abolitionists of the audience were the Rev. John Pierpont and Rev. Dr. Channing of the new Antislavery church. The French, Danish, Prussian, Austrian, Russian, and Spanish ministers, with Secretaries Chase and Cameron, sat in groups in the Senate Chamber, amid the eagerly listening Senators. The last is a special item; for I observe, as an every-day habit, that these distinguished gentlemen do not pay very marked attention to each other’s speeches. In the crimson diplomatic gallery sat the daughter and wife of Vice-President Hamlin.”
The editorial judgments were in harmony with the reports of correspondents.
The National Intelligencer, at Washington, which had not inclined to Mr. Sumner on Slavery, said:—
“We give to-day, in consideration of the current interest attaching to its subject, and, we may add, because of its great ability, the speech delivered yesterday by Mr. Sumner in the Senate of the United States on the question of International Law raised by the arrest of Messrs. Mason and Slidell.
“Singularly qualified for this discussion by his erudition as a jurist and as a student of history, besides being called by his position as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations in the Senate to give to the subject that mature consideration it deserves, Mr. Sumner has brought to its treatment an affluence of illustration and authority, derived from the most cherished traditions of American diplomacy, for the purpose of showing that the decision to which our Government has come in the premises may be rested on a broader foundation than that which was sufficient to cover the ground of the British reclamation against the act of Captain Wilkes.”
L’Eco d’Italia, an Italian paper in New York, took this occasion to pay a warm tribute to Mr. Sumner, and his moderation of conduct.
“Nobody had better right to speak with knowledge and authority than the Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations, and as a man rather extreme in his ideas of personal independence.”
Then complimenting him on his knowledge of French and Italian, his admiration of Italian literature, and his ardent love of Italy, this journal says:—
“Sumner, from the beginning of his political career, showed himself the decided enemy of Slavery, and was marked by the opposite party as an Abolitionist, which was equivalent to subverter of public order, robber, and worse. In the midst of the greatest difficulties he kept himself constant always.… Now that the movement has commenced, Sumner, instead of throwing wood on the fire, which already burns too much, shows all the prudence and sagacity of a true statesman.”
The World, in New York, said:—
“The carefully prepared speech which Mr. Sumner delivered in the Senate yesterday is an important contribution to the stock of current information on an important question of public law. The arrest of Mason and Slidell has not before been discussed with so much breadth of research. Mr. Sumner’s luminous speech is a remarkable example of the advantage of historical knowledge in the discussion of public questions.…
“It is creditable to Mr. Sumner that he has been able to present so conclusive an historical argument in opposition to the view of this subject taken by legists and publicists so able and erudite as Mr. Everett, Mr. Cushing, Professor Parsons, and Chief-Justice Bigelow, of his own State, and most of the public journals in all parts of the country. The error of these writers has consisted in an undue deference to the British admiralty decisions,—decisions against whose validity on the points involved in this controversy our Government has always protested.
“Mr. Sumner’s argument plainly sustains Mr. Seward in his surrender of the Rebel commissioners, but not in his delaying to do so till they were demanded by the English Government. The thanks of the country are due to Mr. Sumner for his convincing argument that the national honor has suffered no detriment by their surrender.”
The New York Commercial Advertiser said:—
“Mr. Sumner gives, within limits as brief as the nature of the case would permit, the arguments which influenced the Committee after a laborious investigation of the point in dispute. He performs this duty in a temperate, lucid, and convincing manner, rising above all asperity or excitement, and viewing the question as it affects the best interests of the human race. At the same time he has steered almost entirely clear of the track marked out by Secretary Seward, the great body of his argument being drawn from events and precedents in the history of our own country.… We take the greater pleasure in referring to the elaborate arguments brought forward by Senator Sumner, inasmuch as certain parties seem to think that Secretary Seward’s able reply to Lord Lyons on this subject was nothing but a graceful backing down before superior force,—that he strove to hunt up precedents on behalf of a position which was in fact defensible only because our Government could not accept the gauntlet thrown down by that of Great Britain. No unprejudiced person, we think, can peruse Mr. Sumner’s speech without arriving at a different conclusion. It should rather be an occasion for national congratulation than humiliation, that Great Britain has, de facto, abandoned her old ground, and planted herself on doctrines and practice strictly, and for a time almost exclusively, American.”
The Burlington Daily Times, of Vermont, said:—
“We have not room to print the elaborate and convincing argument of Senator Sumner on the seizure of the Rebel emissaries, Mason and Slidell. Notwithstanding all that has been said, it is fresh and original, and is a complete vindication of the course of the Administration in promptly restoring the seized persons to the British Government. It cannot remove the animosities which the course of England has kindled among Americans; but it cannot fail to heal the galled sense of wounded national honor, because it is shown by the argument that it has not been wounded at all,—that the feeling of shame and dishonor which has been experienced has been resting on imaginary and false grounds.”
The Boston Transcript said:—
“Fortunately for Mr. Sumner, events have arisen which have enabled him to demonstrate that he is not ridden by one idea. As Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the most important post that a Senator of the United States can hold in the present emergency of the nation, he has shown talents and acquirements which every fair mind cannot but appreciate. The ‘inevitable negro’ is banished from this arena, and the country has been astonished by the solidity of Mr. Sumner’s learning, the amplitude of his understanding, and the sagacity of his judgment on all the vital questions which have arisen in his special department. His speech on the affair of the Trent is a masterpiece. He goes beyond all the precedents of the conservative lawyers of New England, and all the arguments of the Secretary of State, to the essential principles of International Law, as recognized by the great thinkers and statesmen of the Continent of Europe, and as contended for by our own Government. He, the man who has most cause to hate Slidell and Mason, and who, from his Abolitionist proclivities, would be most opposed to delivering them up, is found to exceed even Mr. Seward in his desire to establish the rights of neutrals and ignore the passions of the hour.”
The Norfolk County Journal said:—
“It is a work of supererogation to say one word in its praise. Public opinion has already stamped it as one of the great speeches of the present generation of American statesmen. In the acquaintance which it displays with International Law, the impregnability of its argument, the classic finish of its diction, and the statesmanlike temper which it brings to the discussion, it has gained for its author new honors, and done much to counteract a prejudice against our Senator which too many had mistakenly allowed to possess their minds.”
The Haverhill Publisher said:—
“The late speech of the Senator on the Trent affair is one of the ablest state papers that have appeared in this country for years, and will have a powerful influence upon the English mind in settling the present disturbed state of feeling, and also in securing the practical acknowledgment of a great principle in International Law. Those who have found the most fault of late with Mr. Sumner for his efforts to keep fresh before the country the cause of our present disaster, as an important thing to be considered, while struggling for relief, are now among the first to do him honor for his unanswerable argument upon the Trent Question, and the principle involved. In the end, the country and the world will as fully agree with him, practically, upon the question of Slavery. No man can more truly be said to be the man for the hour than can Senator Sumner.”
The Salem Gazette said:—
“It is a pleasure to accord to Senator Sumner the approval of his most judicious course on the same subject. We take the more pleasure in this approval, because it has often been our fortune to differ with Mr. Sumner in regard to the treatment of some of the most important questions before the country. But in regard to our foreign relations, holding as he does the responsible position of Chairman of the Senate Committee on that subject, we confide in him as a safe, wise, and thoroughly well-informed guide.”
These are illustrations of the American press. Very different was that of London, so far as it spoke. One of our countrymen, then abroad, and closely observing the manifestations of opinion, remarked that the speech was attacked, but not reprinted.
“The excellence of any such effort is to be measured now in this country only by the amount of attack it calls out, and I was therefore much pleased to see that the Times lost its temper in criticizing you. It is a significant fact, that neither it nor any of its allies have ventured to reprint the speech. They confine themselves to a style of criticism that I should call blackguard, against you, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Everett.”
In contrast with the prevailing tone was the London Peace Society, which, in its Annual Report, spoke of the speech.
“They felt it right to reprint the very able speech delivered by Mr. Charles Sumner on the affair of the Trent, because, while explicitly surrendering every right on the part of the American Government, as respects that transaction, he does so on such broad principles as in the judgment of the Committee it would be greatly to the advantage of all civilized states to adopt and act upon in their relations with each other. Copies of this pamphlet were sent to all Members of Parliament, and to a large number of newspapers and periodicals throughout the kingdom.”[115]
The character of the attack by the Times will be seen by a few passages from a leader, January 25, 1862.
“The last mail has brought us another attempt, made in a speech five columns long by Mr. Charles Sumner in the American Senate. This gentleman is, perhaps, the one American who has been most petted and fêted over here. Mr. Charles Sumner was the greatest drawing-room lion of his day, and his mane was combed by a thousand delicate hands, often held up in admiration at his gentle roarings. In America he has arrived at the high distinction of Senator for Massachusetts and Chairman of the Committee for Foreign Affairs; but after the very general hilarity throughout Europe caused by Mr. Seward’s diplomatic fiasco, it seems to have been thought necessary to put some one forward to make ‘a scathing exposition of British inconsistency,’ and to show what a victory over the old country had been obtained. So Charles Sumner is the man.… Mr. Sumner has not done his work ill. But then he had peculiar facilities for it. ‘Who best has known them can abuse them best.’ Moreover, his audience at Washington was not difficult. Gentlemen who could congratulate themselves on Bull Run required no cogent reasons for seeing a glorious triumph, first in the seizure of the Trent, and then in the compulsory surrender of the prize.… No wonder, then, that Mr. Charles Sumner’s speech in the Senate has been a great success. We are told that all the foreign ambassadors—except only Lord Lyons, whom nothing but severe diplomatic etiquette kept away—came round him and congratulated him; and that after its delivery, ‘our respected mother, England,’ is ‘left out in the cold,’—whatever that may mean. The two points which seem especially to have been admired are, first, ‘the absence of any allusion in his speech to the Negro Question,’—showing that he is by no means so obstinate upon that matter as had been feared,—and, second, ‘the signal rebuke he administered to England.’ We can go some way with Mr. Sumner’s encomiasts in this admiration. It at least shows a versatile and cosmopolitan mind. His ‘allusions to the Negro Question’ are evidently only absent from his Washington speeches because they are kept entirely for English use, and are not fitted for home consumption; whereas the ‘rebukes’ are manufactured expressly for the American market, and are never offered for acceptance on this side of the Atlantic.… It is of no great consequence to us what clouds of dust American statesmen may choose to raise in order to escape from their difficulty. Now that they have eaten the leek, they may declare, if they please, that it was exquisite in its flavor, and had been presented to them as a mark of honor.…
“The case of the Trent has not made any new precedent whatever, nor can it clash with any precedent upon which in modern times we ever did or could have intended to rely. The forcible removal of those four men from under the British flag was a rude outrage, redeemed neither by precedent nor principle, and it has been resented and repaired. If all the Federal Senate make set speeches till doomsday, they can make no more of it.”
In the course of its objurgations, the Times seeks to repel the parallel between the taking by Captain Wilkes and the taking of American citizens by British cruisers, and here it asserts:—
“In the current number of the Quarterly Review it is conclusively shown that only two men ‘claiming to be Americans’ were taken by our cruisers out of American ships in the year preceding the war of 1812.”[116]
“Only two men ‘claiming to be Americans’”! Lord Castlereagh, in the House of Commons, immediately after the breaking out of the war, admitted that there were in the British fleet three thousand five hundred men “who claimed to be American subjects.”[117] The Times perhaps intended “only two men” really American. But here is strange and total oblivion of the fact, that, in every case of taking, whether the victim was American or not, whether two or two hundred were seized, there was an exercise of the very prerogative it condemned in Captain Wilkes, although he had an excuse beyond that of any British cruiser.
This leader of the Times was followed by an article, dated at the Temple, January 28, from its famous correspondent “Historicus,” known to be Mr. Vernon Harcourt, a writer of admirable power on questions of International Law, and afterwards a distinguished member of Parliament. In this article the same spirit appeared, with the same personality, and the same hardihood of assertion. Beginning with elaborate flings at Mr. George Sumner, where the causticity is reinforced from Martin Chuzzlewit, he comes to the Senator, and, in the tone already adopted by the Times, refers to his reception in London: “It would be scarcely too much to say, that, for a single season, Mr. Charles Sumner enjoyed a social success almost equal to that of the ‘Black Sam’ himself. He was regarded as ‘a man and a brother,’ and he could not have been better treated, if he had had real black blood in his veins.” This is to prepare for what follows.
“It is impossible adequately to describe the ‘threat speech’ in the Senate, except by saying that Charles, if possible, out-Sumners George. The great object of this remarkable oration is to prove that the surrender of Messrs. Slidell and Mason is a great triumph for the American Government. There is, proverbially, no accounting for taste; and if the American people are of Mr. Sumner’s opinion, I do not see why we should complain of their contentment. Some people, like Uriah Heep, are ‘very ’umble,’ and their meekness is an edifying spectacle. We demanded the restoration of the prisoners, not in order to mortify the American people, but for the purpose of vindicating the honor of our flag and asserting the established principles of Maritime Law.”
In exposing Mr. Sumner’s misfeasance, the writer proceeds:—
“As if to make the absurdity of his position more conspicuous, Mr. Sumner invokes the sympathies of ‘Continental Governments’ for the doctrine of Mr. Seward’s despatch. He has even the incredible audacity (if it be not, indeed, an ignorance hardly less credible) to pledge the authority of M. Hautefeuille in support of the pretension to treat Messrs. Slidell and Mason as ‘contraband of war.’”
This is followed by an extract from M. Hautefeuille, declaring that a neutral ship, destined for a neutral port, is not subject to seizure.
This passage shows that the writer had in mind something very different from the speech he criticized. Mr. Sumner nowhere alludes to Mr. Seward’s despatch, much less does he invoke the sympathies of Continental Europe for its doctrines. Nor does he pledge the authority of M. Hautefeuille in support of the pretension to treat the Rebel agents as contraband of war; on the contrary, he mentioned M. Hautefeuille as having “entered into this debate with a direct proposition for the release of the emissaries as a testimony to the true interpretation of International Law,”[118] and himself insists upon the very doctrine of the French publicist. Plainly, therefore, the writer dealt hard words at Mr. Sumner, mistaking him for somebody else.
Then comes another misapprehension.
“I know not whether, in the hazy muddle of a confused intelligence, Mr. Sumner has figured to himself that the seizure of Messrs. Slidell and Mason is a parallel case to the instances of impressment of seamen out of which grew the war of 1812. Yet men of less pretensions than the ‘Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations’ ought to be aware that the cases are not only not the same, but not even similar. Their resemblance, at most, extends to the proverbial identity of chalk and cheese.”
Evidently the writer had not read the opinion of the law officers, individualizing the point, that “from on board a merchant ship of a neutral power, pursuing a lawful and innocent voyage, certain individuals have been taken by force,”[119] which was the precise point so often urged by the United States against impressment.
Then follow the general condemnation and counterblast.
“It is impossible to read such performances as the ‘Great Speech of the Hon. C. Sumner’ without drawing a gloomy augury for the future of a nation among whom such a man can occupy a chief place. In all the symptoms of decadence which the recent history of the American Republic exhibits, there is none more conspicuous and apparently more irreparable than the decline in capacity and character of her public men. The men bred under the shadow of the English colonial system were of a very different stamp from the race which progressive Democracy has spawned for itself.…
“But now, whether we turn to the puerile absurdities of President Lincoln’s message, or to the confused and transparent sophistry of Mr. Seward’s despatch, or to the feeble and illogical malice of Mr. Sumner’s oration, we see nothing on every side but a melancholy spectacle of impotent violence and furious incapacity.”
In the volume of Historicus,[120] much of which constitutes a valuable contribution to International Law, this effusion is abridged and modified. Some things are left out, and others are changed. Generally the personalities are mitigated. Thus, the original caption, “The Brothers Sumner on International Law,” is turned into “Letter on Mr. Sumner’s Speech,” and “the hazy muddle of a confused intelligence” is softened into “a confusion of mind” attributed to Mr. Sumner; but the article is introduced by words describing the speech as “professing to expound and to maintain the doctrines of Mr. Seward’s despatch,” and it repeats the allegation that “Mr. Sumner invokes the sympathies of ‘Continental Governments’ for the doctrine of Mr. Seward’s despatch,” whereas, in fact, he never professed or did any such thing. It would be pleasant to forget that an article of such a character was ever written; nor would it be mentioned here, if it did not throw important light—and not to be neglected—on the general tone of the British press and its unfounded conduct towards our Republic at a critical moment.
Contemporary letters from countrymen abroad tell how they were impressed.
At home, persons in all conditions—statesmen, judges, lawyers, clergymen, authors, citizens—made haste to express gratification and sympathy. This copious correspondence evinces the intensity and extent of the prevailing sentiment, which can be learned in no other way. Thus it illustrates an important chapter of history.
A letter from Hon. Richard H. Dana, Jr., District Attorney of the United States at Boston, and afterwards the annotator of Wheaton’s “Elements of International Law,” an able publicist, full of good feeling for England, though written at Boston, may be introduced here, as it bears especially upon the conduct of England and the English press.
“Permit me to say that I am glad to see the London Times’ attack on you and your Trent speech. It will make you feel to the quick—what you did not seem to feel, or refused to admit—the insolent tone of the British press and public men towards us in our struggle for life, and the false manner in which they have tried to turn this case to our national ruin. Those few semi-republican, semi-abolition, liberally inclined men in England, whom you respect, and who command, perhaps, one paper and one monthly, are a drop in the bucket. The ruling class in England is determined to sever this Republic, and all its pent-up jealousy, arrogance, and superciliousness are breaking out stronger and stronger.
“There is not one English paper that I have seen which has not either suppressed or falsified the material facts of this case, because they know, that, properly understood, they would not support the hostile feeling against this country the papers depended upon keeping up. I am rejoiced to know that you feel this.
“I have had a letter from England, from a high source, which speaks of your speech as very able, etc., etc., but says, “No paper has dared to publish it,” and speaks of their attacking without publishing it, thus making it apparent that it is read.
“One of my letters says, ‘It is an excellent speech, but it has cost him his favor in England.’
“I write these things to you because I take pleasure in them. They are the best omen for you that I have seen.”
Hon. George R. Russell, an excellent citizen of Boston, travelling in Europe, wrote from Florence:—
“The Times has come down on you, and has failed. It has the usual bitterness, but the power is wanting.”
Hon. James E. Harvey, Minister Resident at Lisbon, wrote:—
“I have just read your speech on the Trent affair, and cannot refrain from expressing my thanks for its able and conclusive vindication of the position of our Government on that subject. If any reasoning can reconcile the American mind to the restitution of the two emissaries to British protection, your arguments and the calm and convincing presentation of facts must do it. What you have said of Hautefeuille might be justly applied to this statesmanlike production, which, in comprehension and in logical connection, is a state paper.”
Hon. Bradford R. Wood, Minister Resident at Copenhagen, wrote:—
“I thank you for your speech on Maritime Rights, just received, and which I have carefully read. All my assertions that the Trent affair would not lead to war were received here with incredulity, by the Government, by my colleagues, by all parties. It was a bitter disappointment to some of the English here, and I doubt not in England, that this matter has been settled without war. The London Times, while criticizing your speech and denying its conclusions, writhes under it, and its arguments are a severer rebuke to England than any philippics or denunciations could be.”
William S. Thayer, Consul-General at Alexandria, wrote from his post:—
“I lent Mr. Buckle[121] the Intelligencer with your speech on the Trent affair, some points of which received his emphatic indorsement.”
Hon. John Bigelow, Consul at Paris, and afterwards Minister there, wrote from Paris:—
“It produced an excellent effect here, and still better in England, if one may judge by the ill-humor in which it put the Times. The impotent venom of that journal, under the circumstances, was more complimentary than its praise could have been.”
Henry Woods, the Parisian member of the American importing house of Messrs. C. F. Hovey & Co., wrote from Paris:—
“I have to thank you for a copy of your very able speech on the Trent affair, which has been very much read, and in all quarters I hear it spoken of with admiration. It is considered your greatest effort, and worthy of a great occasion.”
Professor Charles D. Cleveland, author and Abolitionist, Consul at Cardiff, Wales, wrote:—
“How my heart rejoices that the affair of the Trent is thus amicably settled! but—and I must say so—I have little faith in the good feeling of the Government of England, and the leading influences here, towards our country. How indignant have I felt the last six weeks at the tone of the leading papers towards our country! Nothing, hardly, could exceed the bitterness of the Times, the Post, the Telegraph, the Saturday Review, &c., &c. Even Punch lent all his influence to the Rebels, and against us. The very first number after the news of the Trent affair was received had a full-length figure of Britannia standing beside a cannon, with a match in her hand, looking across the water, and underneath was written, ‘Waiting for an Answer.’
“True, the religious public, or rather the Dissenters, have shown right feelings; and I wrote letters of thanks to Dr. Newman Hall and to Mr. Spurgeon for what they had done, and received very kind answers; but very few of the Church Establishment have shown right feelings.
“I was always the friend of England, and few have written or spoken more in commendation of her; but I must in truth say that my feelings have changed since I have been here. England would rejoice to-day to see our country divided. She sees our growing greatness, and envies and fears it.”
In close connection with letters from abroad is that of E. Littell, founder and editor of the Living Age, close student of the English press, and warmly attached to England, who wrote from Boston:—
“Allow me to congratulate you upon the speech on the Trent affair. ‘They of the contrary part,’ even, ‘cannot gainsay it.’
“After feeling so deeply the almost unbroken attitude of the London press as to be forced to think and say that I must give up my love for England (which was a part of my inmost heart), I have reverted to her again, pleading that that press does not represent either her people or her Government.”
Hon. Henry L. Dawes, the eminent Representative in Congress, wrote:—
“I congratulate you on your great effort to-day. It was worthy of you. I regret I could not hear it all. But I shall have the greater pleasure in reading it.”
Hon. Hamilton Fish, afterwards Secretary of State, wrote from New York:—
“Exactly right; you have done justice to the question, the country, its history, its policy, and its late action. On such ground as you have placed the subject we stand proudly before the world.…
“It should be circulated largely in England, among the class who will read it. The British press will not publish it in full, unless you can bring, through some of your friends, an influence to bear. Cannot you do so?”
Hon. N. P. Talmadge, former Senator of the United States from New York, wrote from Georgetown, District of Columbia:—
“I have just read with great pleasure your very able speech in regard to Messrs. Mason and Slidell and the recent affair of the Trent. Coming in support of the lucid and able reply of Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons, it places the matter before the American people and all Europe in a light as clear as a sunbeam.
“It seems to me that England, in the excitement of the moment, and with the sudden impulse of redressing a fancied wrong, has not foreseen the inevitable result to which her own action has brought her. She may attempt hereafter, as occasion may require, to evade the consequences by saying that the law officers of the crown decided that the wrong consisted in not taking the Trent into port for the adjudication of a Prize Court, and therefore that was the only point involved. She will find, however, that not only the United States, but France, and all Europe, will hold her to the consequences which you have so clearly demonstrated flow from her own action.
“Mr. Seward’s reply to Lord Lyons, and your speech, will settle this whole question with the American people. If their judgments are satisfied, they cheerfully acquiesce, no matter how high their passions may have been wrought against these Rebels, nor how strong their desire to keep possession of them. I believe there is not a loyal press that has not acquiesced in the decision of the Administration. How proudly all this contrasts with the predictions of Dr. Russell, the correspondent of the London Times, that, if these men were given up, the Government would be dissolved and destroyed by the mob! This will show England that a British ministry have much more to fear from her mobs than the Administration of this Government have to fear from our people.”
Hon. Julius Rockwell, the Judge, and former Senator of the United States, with lifelong experience, political and judicial, wrote from Pittsfield, Massachusetts:—
“The public opinion, as far as I know it here, is in accordance with the positions set forth in your speech, and your speech will tend to illustrate and render it more general. Still, some are unsatisfied, and there is a general, I may say, almost universal, accession of dissatisfaction with the conduct and character of England. This feeling just now pervades our people, crops out in all lectures, and in many sermons, and some prayers.”
Hon. Daniel Ullmann, prominent in the politics of New York, and a General in the war, wrote from his head-quarters:—
“You will greatly oblige me by sending to my address a pamphlet copy of your great speech on the ‘Trent affair.’ I desire it in that form for preservation.”
Hon. James Duane Doty, Governor of Utah, and former Representative in Congress, wrote from Salt Lake City:—
“Far, far from you, on the top of the Rocky Mountains, I have just held communion with you by a perusal of your able, eloquent, and conclusive speech on the Trent affair, as reported in the Herald of the 10th January, which has just reached us. Surely no nation was ever put in a more absurd position than you have placed England, and if she is satisfied with the possession of the Rebels (whom, I am glad to notice, you have not named), we ought to be gratified; for it avoids a quarrel at an inconvenient time, and allays public feeling, which was becoming much excited. These two worthless Rebels could not have been put to a better use.”
Hon. Wayne MacVeagh, afterwards Minister at Constantinople, wrote from West Chester, Pennsylvania:—
“I cannot refrain from expressing to you the personal obligation I feel for your last great speech. Its wise candor and its steadfast adherence to the landmarks of maritime freedom cannot fail to make a profound impression upon the liberal minds of Europe; while disclaiming the thought of her dishonor, you have lifted the Republic to the heights of a beneficent victory.”
Hon. B. C. Clark, merchant, and Consul for Hayti, wrote from Boston:—
“Your speech on the Mason and Slidell matter has won, most justly, golden opinions from all sorts of people. The affair has been put to rest, but simply on legal grounds.… The Trent will tell more terribly upon England than the ghost of Cæsar upon Brutus at Philippi.”
Hon. George T. Bigelow, Chief Justice of Massachusetts, wrote from Boston:—
“I have read your speech on the Trent affair with very great pleasure. It is an admirable exposition of the doctrine which England has so long held on the subject of neutral rights; and while it demonstrates that the act of Captain Wilkes might have been justified on English practice and precedents, it places in the most clear light that it was inconsistent with the position which our Government has always occupied on the subject of search and seizure. The tone of the speech is so quiet and dignified, that it will have the effect, I think, of a severe rebuke on the hasty and unjustifiable conduct of the English Cabinet in demanding a reparation and a surrender of the captives with warlike menaces and preparations.
“The prevailing sentiment here, especially among those who have not heretofore been inclined to speak your praise, is one of commendation of your speech. I am rejoiced that you have been able, while vindicating the course of the Administration in making the surrender of Mason and Slidell, to add so much to your reputation as a statesman.”
Hon. Theophilus Parsons, the eminent law-writer and law-professor, wrote from Cambridge:—
“I have read and studied your speech, and am really unwilling to repeat to you what I have said in commendation of it to others.
“This question may be considered after the fashion of a lawyer, or a politician, or a statesman.
“You have viewed it as a statesman, and, in my understanding of the word, that includes the other two, and elevates them both.
“The affair has given rise to no paper so entirely satisfactory to me, nor to one calculated, in my judgment, to be so truly and permanently useful.”
Hon. Emory Washburn, Professor at the Law School, and former Governor of Massachusetts, wrote:—
“I cannot forbear expressing my satisfaction in reading your speech in the Senate on the Trent affair. It seems to me to place the matter on the true ground; and if the English Government do not find, when they come to look coolly at the matter, that in taking Mason and Slidell they have caught two Tartars, I shall be greatly mistaken. I think, moreover, you have spoken the sober, sound thought of the country; and while they are indignant at the inconsistent annoyance of the ministry and the press of England, they feel that the course taken is not only the wise and expedient one, but, on the whole, the most consistent.”
Hon. John H. Clifford, former Attorney-General of Massachusetts, and Governor, wrote from Boston:—
“I have read with unqualified approval and satisfaction your admirable exposition of the interesting questions of public law in your recent speech, growing out of the arrest and rendition of the ‘two old men’ taken from the Trent. I trust its treatment of the doctrine of Maritime Rights will command on the other side of the water the respect to which it is so justly entitled, and of which its reception by the best minds at home gives a hopeful assurance.”
Hon. John C. Gray, a venerable and accomplished citizen, wrote from Boston:—
“I return you my acknowledgments for your speech on the Mason and Slidell affair. The more I have examined the law,—and I regret that I did not do it earlier,—the more I am satisfied that our civilians here were mistaken in their first impressions.”
Hon. George S. Hale, lawyer, wrote from Boston:—
“Permit me to congratulate you on your late speech in the Senate. I am not unfamiliar with your speeches, and feel great pleasure in saying that none has ever, in my opinion, so strengthened your position as a statesman; none has been more happy, more effective, or more generally satisfactory to your constituents.
“Without calling up any of those questions upon which many of them have differed from you, you have done much to contribute to public peace, and aided well, under peculiarly difficult circumstances, in placing the country in an honorable position before the world.”
Hon. Charles P. Huntington, late Judge of the Superior Court for Suffolk County, wrote:—
“I have read your speech on the Trent affair with more satisfaction than anything that has yet been uttered on the subject, and as placing the merits of the question on the most satisfactory and statesmanlike ground.”
Rev. Theodore D. Woolsey, the excellent President of Yale College, and author of a work on International Law, wrote from New Haven:—
“Having just read with great pleasure your speech on the Trent case, as given in the Tribune of yesterday, I feel moved to express to you my satisfaction that you have given the affair such a shape, and have tacitly exposed some of Mr. Seward’s errors.”
Hon. John Jay, afterwards Minister at Vienna, wrote from New York:—
“Accept my congratulations on your very able speech on the Trent matter. It will rather surprise your friends in England.”
Hon. John M. Read, a Judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, wrote from Philadelphia:—
“I was very much gratified in reading your very able, temperate, and forcible speech on the Trent affair.”
Then, in a second letter, the same judicial authority wrote:—
“It is the very best discussion of the whole subject that I have seen.”
Hon. Francis Brockholst Cutting, former Representative in Congress from New York, and a leader of the bar, wrote from New York:—
“Your speech on Maritime Rights has given me very great satisfaction. It was worthy of your reputation, and equal to the occasion. The argument was particularly gratifying to me, because, from the outset, I had looked at the case from the American point of view, and had expressed myself accordingly.”
Hon. R. J. Meigs, of Tennessee, for a long time eminent at the bar and in juridical study, wrote from New York:—
“One word more. I thank you for your speech upon the Trent affair. It vindicates the honor of our baited and abused country. It will be a well-remembered document in the diplomacy of the world, settling as it does forever the immunity of neutrals from the insulting pretension of the right to seize persons on their ships merely upon the ground that they owe allegiance to the belligerent. It effectually extracts that poisonous fang from the jaws of Leviathan.”
Hon. David Roberts, lawyer, and author of a “Treatise on Admiralty and Prize,” wrote from Salem:—
“I deem it your best effort, settling, what to me was from the first the embarrassing element in the Wilkes question, a true American definition of ‘despatches.’
“I therefore thank you for the speech sincerely; and though differing toto cœlo from you politically in other respects, I shall not withhold my commendation from your present effort, deeming it, as I do, the paramount duty of all to inculcate the lesson of loyalty everywhere, until this Government is vindicated, and the existing Rebellion suppressed.”
Hon. George Wheatland, lawyer, wrote from Salem:—
“Allow me, for the first time of ever addressing you, to thank you for your masterly statement of the Trent matter, which I have just risen from reading in the Boston Journal.
“You have put the matter in its true light.…
“Your speech will shed light, and, in fact, illuminate the whole subject, and should be read by every one. By taking Mason & Co. we were acting on the English law; by giving them up, we act under our own view of what the law should be, and have brought England over to adopting our view.”
Hon. Asahel Huntington, the veteran lawyer, wrote from Salem:—
“I am always greatly obliged by your speeches, which you have had the kindness to send me from time to time. They are all gems of the first water, but the ‘Trent’ is the greatest gem of all,—so calm, so full, so exhaustive, so statesmanlike, so Websterian in its statements, structure, and heavy logic, that, on first reading it, before receiving the pamphlet, I had it in my heart to write you at once and express my high admiration of that great passage in your public life. It was a great opportunity, and was met in the true spirit of a controversy between nations on questions of International Law. It was potential for good at home and abroad, and is worthy itself to be trusted as an authority from its own intrinsic weight.”
Hon. George Morey, lawyer, and for a long time a political leader in Massachusetts, wrote from Boston:—
“I congratulate you on your having delivered an excellent speech touching our foreign relations, and particularly the case of the Trent.
“Your speech comes exceedingly apropos, following in the track of Mr. Seward’s despatch. As that despatch will be looked upon in England with some suspicion, as proceeding from an artful and wily statesman, and there may be a disposition to regard it as a cunning dodge, &c., it is very fortunate that your speech will follow in the wake of Mr. Seward’s letter. A very great number of distinguished men in England, statesmen, diplomatists, &c., will say, Mr. Sumner is honest, he speaks his real sentiments. Besides, it will be said that Mr. Sumner is a most decided Antislavery man, and he is heartily engaged in putting down this great Rebellion, not because he desires to fight for empire, as Earl Russell stated in a speech some time since our Government were, but because he is anxious to extinguish Slavery, and because he knows that Slavery is the origin of this war. I am satisfied your speech will have an excellent effect in England, and also in France, and all over the Continent. You have done a capital thing towards conciliating the favor and good-will of our State Street gentlemen. Mr. Cartwright, President of the Manufacturers’ Insurance Office, where I am a director, says you have done excellent service to the country and the good cause. He has a pretty large amount of war risks. Your short speech in answer to Mr. Hale was commended very highly everywhere.”
Hon. Theophilus P. Chandler, lawyer, wrote from Boston:—
“Your Trent speech is by far the best thing I have read on the subject. You look down upon the matter, while others look at it.… The tables are completely turned upon England. If there is any shame in her, she will show it now.”
Hon. E. F. Stone, lawyer, wrote from Newburyport:—
“As one of your constituents, I write to thank you for your speech on the surrender of Mason and Slidell. I have read and re-read it with great satisfaction. It is just the thing to create a correct public opinion upon the subject in the country.”
Hon. Alfred B. Ely, lawyer, and officer in the War of the Rebellion, wrote from Boston:—
“I have just read your speech on the Trent affair with great pleasure. I deem it entirely unanswerable, and that it ought to conclude the whole subject. I desire, therefore, to congratulate you upon it.”
William I. Bowditch, conveyancer and Abolitionist, wrote from Boston:—
“I read your speech on the Mason and Slidell matter yesterday. It certainly is very admirable and conclusive. Still, I think it doubtful whether England will consider that she has really abandoned any of her previous pretensions by demanding and accepting the men.”
Hon. Edward L. Pierce, lawyer, writer, and speaker, correct in opinion, and able, wrote from Boston:—
“I read your speech. It is grand,—dealing just right with the British, and putting us on the highest grounds. It will help the country.”
Rev. Baron Stow, the Baptist clergyman, wrote from Boston:—
“My opinion of its merits may be of small importance to you, but I cannot forbear to assure you that it has the approbation and admiration of one of your constituents. I cannot be supposed to be much versed in International Law, but I understand your argument, and am sure that every one who reads must understand. I see not how you could have made it more clear or cogent. You condense the history of a vexed question into a crystalline lens, and every eye must see your point. I greatly mistake, if your views do not produce conviction both at home and abroad. You have performed a service to the true and the right which will surely be appreciated and acknowledged.”
Rev. Caleb Stetson, the Liberal preacher, wrote from Lexington, Massachusetts:—
“I must for a moment break in upon your vast public labors to thank you for your admirable speech on the affair of those two wretches, Mason and Slidell. You have said the best things that could be said, in the best manner. I greatly rejoice that the traitor villains are given up, for we cannot afford a war with England when we have this diabolical Rebellion. I am glad of your forbearance towards her, but I fear this generation will not forgive.”
Rev. William H. Furness, the eloquent and Radical preacher, wrote from Philadelphia:—
“Lend me your own gift, that I may tell you in fitting words how admirable your speech is. It is cheering to see how it has convinced people that all is right in regard to the Mason and Slidell affair. With all its shortcomings and shilly-shallying, what a glorious nation this North is!”
James Russell Lowell, eminent in our literature, wrote from Cambridge:—
“Let one of your constituents thank you for your speech on Maritime Rights. Excellent, as far as my judgment goes, in matter and manner.”
Charles E. Norton, the accomplished author, and for a time editor of the North American Review, wrote from Cambridge:—
“I read your speech last night with such great satisfaction, that I desire to express my thanks to you for it. The argument could not be more forcibly presented, or in a manner better fitted to enlighten and confirm the sense of national dignity here, and to give the right direction to public opinion abroad. You have done a work of the highest value.”
Orestes A. Brownson, the able writer and reviewer, wrote from Elizabeth, New Jersey:—
“I have been absent from home, and have read only the one on the Trent affair, which I think does you equal credit as a lawyer and a statesman. The view you take is the one which I myself took, when I first heard of the capture of Mason and Slidell, but I knew not that it could be backed by so many and such high authorities as you have cited.”
Hon. Amasa Walker, Professor of Political Economy, and afterwards Representative in Congress, wrote from North Brookfield, Massachusetts:—
“I am much obliged for your speech on Maritime Rights. It is your grandest effort. A noble theme, and treated in an able and most statesmanlike manner. You have never made a speech that did your country more good or yourself more credit. I am particularly glad that it draws forth encomiums from presses in this State that have been very hostile to you. They seem compelled to admit their admiration of the speech, and that it is a great historical document.”
Parke Godwin, the able writer, wrote from the office of the New York Evening Post:—
“Let me add my congratulations to the thousands you must have already received for the noble speech in defence of our time-honored championship of the seas. It is thorough, searching, manly, and unanswerable.”
Charles L. Brace, the enlightened Reformer and author, wrote from New York:—
“Will you allow me, as one of your great ‘Constituency,’ to express my admiration of your speech on the Trent affair, as reported by telegraph to-day? Its enlightened views, broad treatment, sound policy, and thorough historical soundness make it, to my mind, the first of your many public efforts in oratory.”
Professor Henry W. Torrey, of Harvard University, wrote:—
“I hope that you will allow an old Whig, who has often differed from you in political opinion, though never seduced into supporting Mr. Buchanan or Mr. Bell, to congratulate you on the position you have taken and so ably maintained on Neutral Rights. From the first moment I trembled for the consequences of the seizure of the insurgents. Captain Wilkes’s act appeared to be a portentous blunder, matched only by the truculent indorsements that followed it. It consoles me, however, that this deed has become the occasion for teaching our people their own antecedents, and proving to the world their ability to mortify their pride in the presence of higher claims.… You have nobly substituted the argumentum ab humanitate for the argumentum ad hominem, which you so justly condemn.”
Rev. Convers Francis, the learned Professor, wrote from Cambridge:—
“Most heartily do I thank you for your great speech on Maritime Rights, which adds another to your many claims on the nation’s gratitude. It is a thorough, exhaustive, and most able piece of argument,—by far the most so which that question called forth,—and extorts praise even from enemies.”
John Penington, the bookseller, wrote from Philadelphia:—
“I have delayed reading the ‘Maritime Rights’ speech till I could enjoy it in the pamphlet form, corrected. It is an admirable compend, a perfect multum in parvo. It is a verification of the adage, that ‘Doctors don’t like to take their own physic,’—our friend Bull being no exception to the rule. I feel much obliged to you for the treat you have afforded me.”
Alfred Pell, an intelligent Free-Trader, intimate with England, and manager of an important insurance office, wrote from New York:—
“I have a long letter from [Admiral] Dupont. He wrote when his last advices from the North were of the 22d December, so that he could not have known what action the Government had determined upon; yet he says, ‘Few persons in the fleet approved of the action of Commodore Wilkes, and some of the most intelligent condemned it in toto, yet all allowed that it showed high moral courage on the part of Wilkes.’ … You show we do not stoop to conquer, and I am sure that our friends on the other side will feel like the lady’s maid spoken of by Swift, who said ‘that nothing annoyed her so much as being caught in a lie.’”
John E. Lodge, merchant and personal friend, wrote from Boston:—
“Your speech is more complete even than Mr. Seward’s note; it is considered here as your very happiest and ablest effort. The English will open their eyes at some parts of it.”
Willard P. Phillips, merchant, wrote from Salem:—
“The truth is, that at last you have satisfied even the commercial community, and they acknowledge that you have more than ‘one idea.’ They express surprise to find that you have attended to anything but Slavery, which they supposed had occupied all your thoughts and all your time. I am sure that your speech has made many who have heretofore opposed you feel much more kindly towards you; and I congratulate you, both upon this change of feeling towards you, and also upon the delivery of your speech, which, so able and clear, has satisfied even the doubtful ones that the surrender of the ‘two old men’ was right.”
Stephen Higginson, merchant, wrote from Boston:—
“I have read to-day with infinite satisfaction your speech of the 9th on the Trent affair, and you must allow me to tell you how much I admire it. Crammed with unimpeachable authorities, the argument terse, vigorous, and eloquent, this speech sheds a flood of American light upon the subject, which has been wanting to all other essays upon it which have come under my notice.”
George Livermore, merchant and student, wrote from Boston:—
“I read your speech on the Trent affair with unqualified admiration, as it was printed in the Journal, and I hope a large edition will be published in pamphlet form for preservation. I had supposed Mr. Seward had exhausted all that could be said on ‘our side,’ but you have given new interest by your wonderful illustrations. The whole tone of the speech is admirable.”
Waldo Higginson, an educated man of business, wrote from Boston:—
“Having just completed reading your great speech on the Trent Question, I am impelled to write you, to do my humble part towards thanking you for such a triumphant effort. I think it is exhaustive, abstinent of all not strictly germane to the weighty matter in hand, puts the country in a far more dignified position than it was left by Mr. Seward’s late letter to Lord Lyons, eminently courteous towards present England, and determines as far as possible that country’s position.”
Carlos Pierce, merchant, afterwards agriculturist, wrote enthusiastically from Boston:—
“I am especially grateful for a copy of your most remarkable and wonderful speech, delivered in the Senate January 9, on Maritime Rights. It came at an opportune moment, when the whole populace were terribly excited, ready to plan any kind of an expedition to sink the vessel that should be sent to convey the Rebels from Fort Warren. It is hardly possible for you to conceive of the change it wrought in public sentiment in twenty-four hours. It was as oil poured upon the troubled waters to their wounded pride. But it equally astonished and delighted your best friends and worst enemies, and won for you a host of new admirers. It was the most masterly and powerfully convincing argument I have ever read of yours on any subject. The people, the press, the nation, the world, will ever delight to honor the man that displayed the genius equal to such a rare opportunity, and was ready to strike so powerful a blow against a terrible wrong long endured, and in favor of our nation’s honor, humanity, and civilization.”
Robert K. Darrah, appraiser at the Custom-House, wrote:—
“I am constrained to congratulate you upon making the Thursday speech on the Trent affair. It has fallen on the community with the most happy effect. It was most timely and salutary, and most certainly the great speech of the session in a higher than a rhetorical sense. It will have a most wide and extended influence: first, to pacificate the public sentiment in this country, and also in England; and then to conciliate European powers, by acceding to the policy and principles they urge upon us; and, finally, by clinching England to the construction of International Law for which we have always contended, and thus driving her from her offensive pretensions pertinaciously adhered to for a century. The speech is applauded on all sides, even by those who do not love our party or you any too well.… The peroration is particularly splendid, argumentative, eloquent, and wise. I repeat, that all sorts of people applaud it, and it is believed that you have done more to put down our Rebellion by your action in the Senate on Thursday than all the major-generals have done in the last six months.”
Joseph Lyman, an early friend and college classmate, wrote from Jamaica Plain, near Boston:—
“You cannot think how much I was delighted with your Trent speech. I say nothing of it critically, but that the statements were truly admirable; and you know very well, that, when a case is well stated, it is more than argued, it is adjudged. But this is not why I was so much pleased with it. It was because it was so thoroughly in your best line and manner. It showed you to the public as I want to show you,—as a truly practical man. I know as well as you the absurdity of those who call Antislavery a party of one idea, of abstraction and transcendentalism, &c.,—as if the one idea of Humanity did not absorb all others of practical legislation.”
Rev. Samuel M. Emery, of the Episcopal Church, and a college classmate, wrote from Portland, Connecticut:—
“It is rather late in the day to congratulate you upon the lofty position you have reached on the round of fame and usefulness, but not too late to thank you for your exhaustive speech on the Trent affair. I, as well as thousands of Union-loving people, thank you for that speech.”
William G. Snethen, Abolitionist and lawyer, wrote from Baltimore:—
“God bless Mr. Sumner! Who shall say that God has not spared him from the bludgeon of the murderer, not only to defend the poor negro in his God-given rights, but to vindicate our country from the insolence of England, and pronounce judgment against her past wrongs, while according forgiveness to the tardy penitent?
“You said that the correspondence closed with Governor Seward’s letter to Lord Lyons. True; but his annotator is not less illustrious. Par nobile fratrum! I am curious to see how your speech will be received in England.”
John T. Morrison wrote from Washington:—
“I have been so much pleased with your clear, concise, authoritative, and conclusive vindication of the action of the Government in the case, and, withal, with the sublime eloquence with which you proclaim the triumph of American diplomacy over the long, sullen, and obstinate perverseness of English rule, that I feel it my duty to ask a few copies of your speech for distribution among special friends in Indiana.”
George Ely, of Chicago, wrote from Washington, where he was a visitor:—
“I had the pleasure of listening to your great speech, delivered in the Senate of the United States yesterday, on Maritime Rights. Permit so humble an individual as myself, and a stranger to you, to congratulate you upon the unequalled ability of your speech, and the triumphant vindication you have given to the American doctrine upon that question. The country will feel proud, in these times of trouble and doubt, of such an advocate.”
Ellis Yarnall, an excellent citizen, much connected with England, wrote from Philadelphia:—
“And now that we have had that speech, everything else that has been said on the subject seems of little worth. Everywhere I hear the same judgment; so that your friends may well congratulate you on what is doubtless one of the most brilliant successes of your life. It seems to me of the greatest importance that the speech should have large circulation in England. The Times, I fear, will hardly publish what, from its very moderation and its statesmanlike dignity, will tell so much for the Americans. Yet the leading men of all parties will read it, and I am sure it will greatly help our cause. Your rebuke of England’s warlike preparations is most timely, and I am confident good men in England will feel nothing but shame at the remembrance of the menacing action into which they were betrayed, in December, 1861, in a controversy on what you call a question of law.”
These unsought and voluntary expressions of opinion show that on this occasion, as when demanding Emancipation, Mr. Sumner was not alone. Weight and numbers were with him. Nobody better than these volunteers represented the intelligence and conscience of the country.
OFFICE OF SENATOR, AND ITS INCOMPATIBILITY WITH OTHER OFFICE.
Remarks in the Senate, on the Case of General Lane, of Kansas, January 13, 1862.
The question of the seat of Hon. James H. Lane, of Kansas, was referred to the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, at the extra session of July, 1861, when the Committee reported that he was not entitled to his seat. The consideration of the resolution was postponed to the present session.
It appeared, that, previously to the extra session, and before Mr. Lane had taken his seat as Senator from Kansas, he was designated by President Lincoln as Brigadier-General of Volunteers, and entered upon his public duties as such, but without any actual commission or formal appointment according to law. Afterwards, when informed that he could not be Brigadier-General and at the same time Senator, he abandoned the former post and was duly qualified as Senator. Meanwhile Governor Robinson of Kansas, assuming that Mr. Lane had so far accepted another office as to vacate his seat in the Senate, appointed Hon. Frederic P. Stanton in his place, and the Judiciary Committee affirmed the title of the latter.
January 13th, Mr. Sumner spoke against the report.
MR. PRESIDENT,—The Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Foster] has presented the objections to the seat of General Lane ingeniously and ably; but I must frankly confess that he fails to satisfy me. I could not resist the brief, but decisive, statement of the Senator from New York [Mr. Harris], to which we listened the other day; and the ampler argument of the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Clark], to which we have listened to-day, seems to leave little more to be said. I shall follow the latter without adding to the argument.
The language of the Constitution applicable to the case is explicit: “No person holding any office under the United States shall be a member of either House of Congress during his continuance in office.” But the question arises, Did General Lane hold any such office after he became Senator?
Not considering the case minutely, I content myself with briefly touching two points, either of which will be sufficient to secure his seat to General Lane.
1. At the time when the military appointment was received from the President, General Lane was simply Senator elect from Kansas, and not actually Senator. This cannot be questioned. Until he took the oath at your chair, Sir, he was Senator in title only, not in function. It is true, he already exercised the franking privilege; but this he will also exercise months after his term expires. The franking privilege was all that he possessed of Senatorial functions. On this point I read what is said by Mr. Cushing, in his elaborate work on the Law and Practice of Legislative Assemblies.
“Sec. 2. Refusal to qualify. One who is returned a member of a legislative assembly, and assumes a seat as such, is bound to take the oaths required of him, and perform such other acts as may be necessary to qualify him, if any, to discharge the duties of his office. If a member elect refuses to qualify, he will be discharged from being a member, with more or less of obloquy, or none at all, according to the circumstances of his case; but he cannot be expelled, because he cannot as yet discharge the duties of a member.”[122]
It is clear that the member elect is not invested with the office until qualified by taking the oath. If illustration of this rule be needed, it will be found in the Parliamentary History of Great Britain. Soon after the Revolution of 1688, two persons returned as members refused to take the oaths and were discharged. But there is an historic precedent almost of our own day. As the long contest for Catholic Emancipation in Great Britain was drawing to a close, Mr. O’Connell was elected by the County of Clare to a seat in Parliament. Presenting himself at the bar of the House of Commons, he refused to take the Oath of Supremacy, then required of all members, and was heard at the bar in support of his claim; but the House resolved that he was not entitled to sit or vote, unless he took this oath; and as he persisted in refusal, a writ was issued for a new election. Still later, the same question arose in the case of Baron Rothschild, the eminent banker of the Jewish persuasion, who, when elected as representative for the city of London, refused to take the oaths required, and on this account was kept out of his seat, until what is known as the Jews’ Relief Bill became a law. The conclusion is irresistible, that, until the oath was taken, General Lane had not entered upon his functions as Senator; and here the argument of the Senator from Connecticut, with regard to the effect of the oath, is strictly applicable. An oath in public, at your chair, Sir, being at once of record and sealing the acceptance of an office, is very different from the informal oath taken in private, at a distance, before a local magistrate, which is in the nature of an escrow, until recorded in the proper department.
2. Even if General Lane had been Senator, invested with the functions of the office, and completely qualified by taking the necessary oath, it is still clear that the military duties he had undertaken did not operate as a resignation. And here I remark, that, when it is proposed to unseat a Senator, to deprive him of a place in this body,—I might almost say to deprive him of his rank,—the evidence must be complete. It must be, according to that old phrase of the Common Law, “certainty to a certain intent in every particular.” If there be doubt, either in law or fact, the interpretation should be in his favor. But this case requires no such interpretation. It is true that General Lane had entered upon certain military duties, but he had assumed no military office under the Constitution of the United States. Colonel Baker, a late lamented member of this body, had assumed military duties also. Like General Lane, he, too, had come forward at the summons of the President. It is true that Colonel Baker acted professedly under a commission from a State. General Lane has latterly acted under a similar commission; but at the moment in question he was acting under certain informal and extra-constitutional proceedings of the President, rendered necessary by the exigencies of the hour. The President, by proclamation, undertook to organize an army. He called for volunteers, and also for additions to the regular army. All approved the patriotic act. But I am at a loss to understand how it is supposed that this proceeding can be made effective to oust a Senator of his seat. The act of the President was proper, just, and patriotic; but clearly, and beyond all question, it needed the sanction of Congress to be completely legal. Without such sanction, the army must have drawn its breath from the proclamation alone, and every commission would have been merely a token of Presidential confidence, liable to be defeated, first, by the failure of Congress to sanction the proclamation, and, secondly, by refusal of the Senate to advise and consent to the nomination. It was only when the Act of July 22d was passed, that the President was authorized to appoint new Brigadier-Generals. Then it was, for the first time, that a legal addition was made to the national army, and that this very office was legally created which General Lane was charged with accepting some time in June.
I do not forget the retroactive statute passed on the last day of the session, declaring that all the acts, proclamations, and orders of the President respecting the army and navy, and calling out or relating to the militia or volunteers, are approved, and in all respects legalized and made valid, to the same intent and with the same effect as if they had been issued and done under the previous express authority and direction of Congress. The clause in the Constitution against ex post facto laws has been restricted by judicial interpretation to criminal matters; but I doubt if even this much questioned interpretation would sanction such a retroactive effect as is now proposed. So much, at least, I do know: the Senate is judge, without appeal, with regard to the seats of its members; and I am sure it will not unseat a Senator by a strained application of an ex post facto statute.
The conclusion is twofold: first, that at the time in question General Lane was not a Senator; and, secondly, that at the time in question he was not a Brigadier. The whole case is unreal. It is a question between an imaginary Senator and an impossible Brigadier; or rather, it is a question whether an imagined seat in this body was lost by alleged acts under an impossible military commission. The seat of the Senator did not become a reality until some days after General Lane is supposed to have vacated it; and the military commission did not become a possibility until several weeks after General Lane had abandoned it.
Of course, with this view of the law on these two decisive points, it becomes entirely unnecessary to consider the multifarious and indefinite evidence with regard to what General Lane did in the way of accepting his military commission; because nothing that he did, and nothing that he could do, under that impossible commission, would operate legally in the present case.
In reply to Mr. Davis, of Kentucky, Mr. Sumner spoke further.
I have no desire to follow at length the Senator from Kentucky, but I venture to ask the attention of the Senate simply to one of the points he has presented. According to him, General Lane, when elected as Senator, by the mere fact of his election became Senator, so that the Constitution operated to create an incompatibility between the function of Senator and the new office which it is said he accepted. The Senator from Kentucky, as I understood, argued that the function of the Senator, at least for the purpose of this case, commences with his election.
Mr. Davis. Will the Senator from Massachusetts permit me to ask him a question?
Mr. Sumner. Certainly, if the Senator will allow me just to make my statement. The Senator, I say, assumes that the function of the Senator, at least for the purposes of this case, commences with his election; and in support of that assumption he quotes the Constitution of the United States, as follows:—
“No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office, under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased, during such time.”
Now, Mr. President, I most humbly submit that the clause of the Constitution just quoted is entirely inapplicable. It has nothing to do with the question. I say, with all respect to the Senator, he might as well have quoted anything else in the Constitution. It does not bear on the case. It relates to an entirely different matter. There is another associate clause which does directly bear on this question. It is as follows:—
“And no person holding any office under the United States shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office.”
Those are the words, Sir, governing this case, and they conduct us directly to the question, when and at what time a person becomes a member of either House. That is the simple question.
Mr. Davis. Will the Senator now permit me?
Mr. Sumner. I will finish in one moment. Clearly he becomes a member of this body, so as to discharge his duties as Senator, and to be affected with the responsibilities of Senator, only when he has taken his oath at your desk, Sir,—not one minute before. There is nothing in the Constitution, there is nothing in the practice of any parliamentary body in this country, or in any other country, I think, pointing to any different conclusion. Here I cannot err. The language of the Constitution is sufficiently precise, and I feel confident that the practice of Congress and of other parliamentary bodies is sufficiently authoritative. Therefore the conclusion is inevitable, that, until the 4th of July, last summer, General Lane, chosen Senator by the people of Kansas, was simply Senator elect, possessed through courtesy of the franking privilege, but enjoying no other Senatorial function.
Now I am ready to answer any question of the Senator.
Mr. Davis. I would ask the Senator from Massachusetts if the office of Senator from the State of Kansas was vacant until General Lane qualified as a member of this body?
Mr. Sumner. In a certain sense I should say it was.
Mr. Davis. When he qualified, did or did not his office have reference to the time of his election, and take its date from the date of his election?
Mr. Sumner. I should say in a certain sense it did. I have already said that he had the franking privilege, and I presume he was entitled to the emoluments of the place, such as they are; but had he not been qualified, he could not have drawn pay. It was only by taking the oath that he was entitled to pay from the Secretary of the Senate.
Mr. Davis. The Senator knows well, that, assuming his premises to be true, whenever the Senator from Kansas consummated his election by taking his seat and taking the oath of office, his term dated back to the date of his election.
Mr. Sumner. The Senator must pardon me, if I cannot assent to his conclusion. He may have been a Senator to a certain extent, but not so as to create incompatibility with another office under the Constitution.
January 15, Mr. Sumner cited two precedents,—the case of Hammond v. Herrick,[123] and that of Elias Earle of South Carolina.[124]
The marginal note of the latter says:—
“Continuing to execute the duties of an office under the United States, after one is elected to Congress, but before he takes his seat, is not a disqualification, such office being resigned prior to the taking of the seat.”
January 16, the seat of Mr. Lane was affirmed, contrary to the report of the Committee, by the vote of the Senate,—24 yeas to 16 nays.
EXPULSION OF JESSE D. BRIGHT, OF INDIANA.
Speeches in the Senate, January 21 and February 4, 1862.
December 16, 1861, Mr. Wilkinson, of Minnesota, submitted to the Senate a resolution for the expulsion of Hon. Jesse D. Bright, a Senator from Indiana, on account of a letter to Jefferson Davis, which was pronounced “evidence of disloyalty to the United States, and calculated to give aid and comfort to the public enemies.” The resolution was referred to the Judiciary Committee, which reported upon it adversely; but, on consideration and debate, it was adopted, so that Mr. Bright was expelled.
January 21, 1862, Mr. Sumner spoke as follows.
MR. PRESIDENT,—The expulsion of a Senator is one of the most solemn acts which this body can be called to perform. The sentence of a court in a capital case is hardly more solemn; for, though your judgment cannot take away life, it may take away all that gives value to life. Justice herself might well hesitate to lift the scales in which such a destiny is weighed. But duties in this world cannot be avoided. When cast upon us, they must be performed, at any cost of individual pain or individual regret,—especially in the present case, where the Senate, whose good name is in question, and the country, whose welfare is at stake, forbid us to hesitate.
In other similar cases, arising out of recent events, where the Senate has already acted, the persons in question were absent, openly engaged in rebellion. There was no occasion for argument or discussion. Their guilt was conspicuous, like the rebellion itself. In the present case, the person is not absent, openly engaged in rebellion. He still sits among us, taking part in the public business, voting and answering to his name, when called in the roll of the Senate. His continued presence may be interpreted in opposite ways, according to the feelings of those who sit in judgment. It may be referred to conscious innocence, or it may be referred to audacious guilt.
That he takes his place in the Senate is not, therefore, necessarily in his favor. Catiline, after plotting the destruction of Rome, took his place in the Senate, and listened to the orator who denounced the treason; nor did the Roman patriot hesitate to point his eloquence by the exclamation that the traitor even came into the Senate,—“etiam in Senatum venit.” In the history of our country there is a well-known instance of kindred audacity. Benedict Arnold, after commencing correspondence with the enemy, and before detection, appeared at the bar of a court-martial in Philadelphia, and yet, with treason not only in his heart, but already in his acts, thus spoke, without a blush: “Conscious of my own innocence and the unworthy methods taken to injure me, I can with boldness say to my persecutors in general, and to the chief of them in particular,”—and, with this introduction, he alleged patriotic service.[125] You know well the result. The traitor thus appearing and speaking in open court continued his treason. The faithful historian does not hesitate to say that “at the moment these declarations were uttered he had been eight months in secret correspondence with the enemy, and was prepared, if not resolved, when the first opportunity should offer, to desert and betray his country.”[126] History teaches by example; and the instances that I adduce admonish us not to be governed merely by appearances, but to look at things as they are, and to judge according to facts, against which all present professions are of little worth.
I put aside, therefore, the argument founded on the presence of the person in question. That he still continues in the Senate, and even challenges this inquiry, does not prove his innocence any more than it proves his guilt. The question is still open, to be considered carefully, gravely, austerely, if you will, but absolutely without passion or prejudice,—anxious only that justice should prevail. Your decision will constitute a precedent, important in the history of the Senate, either as warning or encouragement to disloyalty. And since our votes are to be recorded, I am anxious that the reasons for mine should be known.
The question may be properly asked, if this inquiry is to be conducted as in a court of justice, under all the restrictions and technical rules of judicial proceedings. Clearly not. Under the Constitution, the Senate, in a case like the present, is absolute judge, free to exercise its power according to its own enlightened discretion. It may justly declare a Senator unworthy of a seat in this body on evidence defective in form, or on evidence even which does not constitute positive crime. A Senator may deserve expulsion without deserving death; for in the one case the proceeding is to purge the Senate, while in the other it is punishment of crime. The motives in the two cases are widely different. This identical discretion has been already exercised at this very session, as well as the last, in the expulsion of several Senators. And the two early precedents—the first of William Blount, in 1797, and the second of John Smith, in 1807—both proceeded on the assumption that the Senate was at liberty to exercise a discretion unknown to a judicial tribunal. In the well-considered report of the Committee in the latter case, prepared by John Quincy Adams, at that time Senator, we find the following statement.
“In examining the question, whether these forms of judicial proceedings or the rules of judicial evidence ought to be applied to the exercise of that censorial authority which the Senate of the United States possesses over the conduct of its members, let us assume, as the test of their application, either the dictates of unfettered reason, the letter and spirit of the Constitution, or precedents, domestic or foreign, and your Committee believe that the result will be the same: that the power of expelling a member must in its nature be discretionary, and in its exercise always more summary than the tardy process of judicial tribunals. The power of expelling a member for misconduct results, on the principles of common sense, from the interest of the nation that the high trust of legislation should be invested in pure hands.”[127]
I do not stop to consider and illustrate a conclusion thus sustained by precedent as well as reason. It is obvious that the Senate may act on any evidence satisfactory to show that one of its members is unworthy of his seat, without bringing it to the test of any rule of law. It is true that the good name of the individual is in question; but so also is the good name of the Senate, not forgetting also the welfare of the country; and if there are generous presumptions of personal innocence, so also are there irresistible instincts of self-defence, compelling us to act vigorously, not only to preserve the good name of the Senate, but also to save the country menaced by traitors.
Consider, too, the position of a Senator. Elected by the Legislature of his State, he sits for six years in this body, sharing its labors, its duties, its trusts. His official term is the longest known to the Constitution. The Representative, and the President himself, pass away; but the Senator continues. In ordinary times his responsibilities are large; but now they are larger still. On every question of legislation, touching our multitudinous relations, touching our finances, our army, our navy, touching, indeed, all the issues of peace and war,—also on every question of foreign policy, whether in treaties or in propositions disclosed in executive session,—and again, on all nominations by the President, judicial, executive, military, and naval,—the Senator is called to vote; and he is free to join in debate, and to influence the votes of others. With these great responsibilities are corresponding opportunities of knowledge with regard to the counsels of the Government. These doors are often closed against the public, but they are never closed against him. This position of the Senator gives to the question of his loyalty an absorbing interest. Surely it is of no small moment to know if there be among us any person unworthy of all this confidence.
The facts in the present case are few, and may be easily stated; for, beyond certain presumptions, they are of public notoriety, and above all doubt. Indeed, the whole case can be presented as plainly and as unanswerably as a mathematical proposition or a diagram in geometry.
On the 6th of November of the last year, Abraham Lincoln of Illinois was elected President by the popular vote. The election was in every respect constitutional; and yet, in violation of all the obligations of the Constitution, and all the duties of patriotism, a movement was instantly organized in the Slave States to set aside this election, by acts of conventions, if possible, but by violence, if necessary. The movement began in South Carolina, a State always mad with treason; and before the 1st of January then next succeeding, this State formally separated from the Union, renounced the National Government, and ranged in open rebellion. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana followed; and the precise object of this rebellion was to form a new government, with Slavery as its corner-stone. The Senators of these States, one after another, abandoned their seats in this Chamber, announcing a determination to seek their respective homes, and leaving behind menaces of war, should any attempt be made to arrest their wicked purposes.
Meanwhile military preparations were commenced by the Rebel States, who made haste to take military possession of forts and other property belonging to the National Government within their borders. Already, before the 1st of January, the Palmetto flag was raised over the custom-house and post-office at Charleston; it was also raised over Castle Pinckney and Fort Moultrie, in the harbor of Charleston, which, together with the national armory, then containing many thousand stands of arms and military stores, were occupied by Rebel troops in the name of South Carolina. At Charleston everything assumed the front of war. The city was converted into a camp. The small garrison under Major Anderson, after retreating from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, was besieged in the latter fortress. Powerful batteries were erected to sustain the siege. From one of these batteries, on the 9th of January, a shot was fired at the United States steamship Star of the West, with the national flag at her mast-head, bearing reinforcements for the garrison, and the discomfited steamship put back to New York. The darling desire was to capture Fort Sumter, and various plans were devised for this purpose. One Rebel proposed to take the fort by floating to it rafts piled with burning tar-barrels, thus, as was said, “attempting to smoke the American troops out, as you would smoke a rabbit out of a hollow.” Another was for filling bombs with prussic acid, and sending them among the national troops. Another thought that it might be taken without bloodshed,—through silver, rather than shell,—simply by offering each soldier ten dollars of Rebel money. Another proposed a floating battery, through which, under cover of the stationary batteries, and with the assistance of an armed fleet, an attack might be made, while from some convenient point a party of sharpshooters would pick off the garrison, man by man, and thus give opportunity to scale the walls. But such a storming, it was admitted, could be accomplished only at a fatal sacrifice of life, and it was finally determined that the better way was by protracted siege and starvation. Such, at this early day, were the propositions discussed in Charleston, and through the journals there advertised to the country.
The same spirit of rebellion, animating similar acts, appeared in the other Rebel States. On the 3d of January, Fort Pulaski, a fortress of considerable strength near Savannah, was occupied by Rebel troops of Georgia, acting under orders from the Rebel Governor. On the 4th of January, the national arsenal at Mobile, with arms, barrels of powder, and other munitions of war, was seized by Rebel troops of Alabama, as was also Fort Morgan on the same day. On the 11th of January, the marine hospital, two miles below New Orleans, was seized by Rebel troops of Louisiana, and the patients of the hospital, numbering two hundred and sixteen, were ordered away to make quarters for the Rebels,—thus repeating the indefensible atrocity of Napoleon, when, near Dresden, he seized an insane asylum for his troops, and set its inmates loose, saying, “Turn out the mad.”[128] On the 12th of January, Fort Barrancas and the navy-yard at Pensacola, with all their ordnance stores, were obliged to surrender to armed Rebels of Florida and Alabama, the commandant reporting to the National Government, “Having no means of resistance, I surrendered, and hauled down my flag.” On the 24th of January, the national arsenal at Augusta, in Georgia, also surrendered, upon demand of the Rebel Governor. On the 31st of January, the national branch mint, containing $389,000, and the national sub-treasury, containing $122,000, were seized at New Orleans by the Rebel authorities. Such, most briefly told, are some of the positive incidents of actual war through which the Rebellion became manifest. And you also know, that, throughout the anxious period, when these things were occurring, the National Capital was menaced by the Rebels, proposing especially to disperse Congress, to drive away the National Government, and to seize the National Archives. Nor can you forget that Lieutenant-General Scott, then at the head of our army, under the exigencies of the time, changed his head-quarters from New York to Washington, where he gave his best powers to the national defence,—organizing the local militia, summoning the national troops, planting cannon, and in every way preparing to meet the threatened danger.
Meanwhile these Rebel States, having declared their separation from the National Government and forcibly seized its strongholds and other property within their borders, proceeded to constitute themselves into a political conglomerate, under the title of Confederate States. Their Constitution was adopted on the 8th of February, and the same day Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was elected President and commander-in-chief of the armies, and Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, Vice-President. Shortly afterwards, on the 21st of February, the President of the Rebellion nominated a Cabinet, in which Toombs, of Georgia, was Secretary of State, Memminger, of South Carolina, Secretary of the Treasury, and Walker, of Alabama, Secretary of War. To this extent had the Rebellion gone. No longer a mere conspiracy, no longer a simple purpose, no longer a mere outbreak, it was an organized body, or rather several organized bodies massed into one, and affecting the character and substance of government. Remember, too, that in all its doings and pretensions it was a Rebel government, set in motion by conspiracy and sustained by declared Rebellion, which openly disowned the National Government, openly seized the national forts, and openly dishonored the national flag. Of this flagrant Rebellion Jefferson Davis became the chosen chief, as he had already been for a long time the animating spirit. In him the Rebellion was incarnate. He was not merely its civil head, but its military head also. It was he who made cabinets, commanded armies, and gathered munitions of war. His voice and his hand were voice and hand of the Rebellion itself. By his own eminent participation, and the superadded choice of the Rebels, he had become its chief, as much as the old Pretender was chief of the disastrous Rebellion in Great Britain, crushed on the field of Culloden,—as much as Satan himself, when seated on his throne and rallying his peers of state, was chief of an earlier rebellion.
That transcendent outrage, in itself the culmination of the Rebellion, destined to arouse at last a forbearing people, had not yet occurred; but it was at hand. Fort Sumter had not been openly assailed; but the hostile batteries were ready, and the hostile guns were pointed, simply waiting the word of Rebel command, not yet given.
Precisely at this moment, on the 1st of March, 1861, Jesse D. Bright, at the time a Senator of the United States, addressed the following letter to the chief of the Rebellion.
“Washington, March 1, 1861.
“My dear Sir,—Allow me to introduce to your acquaintance my friend Thomas B. Lincoln, of Texas. He visits your capital mainly to dispose of what he regards a great improvement in fire-arms. I commend him to your favorable consideration, as a gentleman of the first respectability, and reliable in every respect.
“Very truly yours,
“Jesse D. Bright.
“To His Excellency, Jefferson Davis,
“President of the Confederation of States.”
And now, before considering the letter, look well at the parties and their respective positions. It is written by a person at the time Senator, and addressed to a person at the time chief of the Rebellion, in behalf of an unknown citizen, owner of a great improvement in fire-arms. It is proper to mention, as additional facts which will not be questioned, that the author had been for a long time in notorious personal relations with the conspicuous authors of the Rebellion, especially with Jefferson Davis and John Slidell,—that he had notoriously sympathized with them in those barbarous pretensions for Slavery which constitute the Origin and Mainspring of the Rebellion,—and that he had always voted with them in the Senate. All this is notorious; and if the old maxim, Noscitur a sociis, or, according to our familiar English, “A man is known by the company he keeps,” be not entirely obsolete, then this inquiry must commence with a presumption against such an intimate associate of the Rebels. But, while looking at the author, we must not forget the humble citizen intrusted with the letter. It is a fact, as I understand, that he has been since arrested for treason, and is now in the hands of the law, charged with the highest crime known to justice, while the author still occupies a seat in the Senate. Perhaps this is only another illustration of the saying of Antiquity, that the law is a cobweb, holding the weak, but which the powerful break through with impunity. The agent is now in custody; the principal is yet in the Senate. So much at present with regard to the parties.
Next comes the letter itself. And here mark, if you please, first, the date, which is the 1st of March. This was at the very moment when the Rebellion was completely organized, and had assumed at all points the undisguised front of war. By various acts of violence it had forcibly dispossessed the National Government of all its military posts in the whole extensive region, except Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, which it held in siege,—while, by other formal acts, it had assumed to dispossess the National Government of all jurisdiction, civil or military, throughout this region. That such acts constituted “levying of war,” within the meaning of the Constitution, is too plain for argument. This phrase, borrowed from the early statute of Edward the Third, has received positive interpretation in the country of its origin, according to which its meaning is clear. There is no better authority than Sir William Blackstone, who, when considering what is “levying of war,” says: “This may be done by taking arms, not only to dethrone the king, but under pretence to reform religion or the laws, or to remove evil counsellors, or other grievances, whether real or pretended: for the law does not, neither can it, permit any private man or set of men to interfere forcibly in matters of such high importance.”[129] And Lord Mansfield, Chief-Justice of England, on the trial of Lord George Gordon, declared it to be “the unanimous opinion of the Court, that an attempt, by intimidation and violence, to force the repeal of a law, was a levying war against the king, and high treason.”[130] I quote these authorities simply that this statement may not rest at any point on my assertion. At the date of this letter, then, there was actual levying of war by Jefferson Davis and his associates against the Government of the United States. And let me add, that this levying of war was not merely that moderate constructive levying of war described by Blackstone, but open, earnest, positive war, backed by armies and by batteries.
You will next observe the address of this letter. It is “To His Excellency, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederation of States.” Bestowing upon this Pretender the title of “His Excellency,” the author certainly exhibits a courtesy—at least in form—which usage does not allow the President of the United States. It is well known, that, at the organization of the Government, the title of “Excellency,” together with all other titles, was, after debate, carefully rejected for our Chief Magistrate; but the author of this treasonable letter will not deny anything to the Chief of the Rebellion. His profusion appears at once, and his first words become a confession. Not by titles of courtesy do loyal Senators address a traitor. There has been a King of England who on one occasion was called only Charles Stuart, and there has been a King of France who on one occasion was called only Louis Capet; and these great instances show how even the loftiest and most established titles are refused, where treason is in question. Titles are sometimes insincere; but a title voluntarily bestowed testifies at least to the professions of him who bestows it. It is a token of respect, and an invitation to good-will, proceeding directly from the author. And in this spirit was this letter begun.
Not content with bestowing upon this Pretender a title of courtesy denied to our own President, the author proceeds to bestow upon him a further title of office and of power. He addresses him as “President of the Confederation of States,”—meaning the very States then engaged in levying war upon the National Government. So far as this author can go, just to the extent of his authority, the Pretender is recognized as President, and the Rebel States are described by the very title which, in defiance of the National Government, they assume. Our own Government steadfastly refuses this recognition. Foreign nations thus far follow substantially the policy of our own Government; but the author of this letter, at the time Senator, makes haste to offer recognition.
Perhaps this double criticism on the address of the letter may seem unimportant. It might be so, if the address had been used in conversation or debate, although then it would be tolerable only if used in derision. But it becomes important, when used directly to the Pretender himself; for then it signifies respect and recognition, while it discloses the mood of the author.
Look next at the contents, or the letter itself, and all that is implied in the address you will find painfully verified. The disloyalty which crops out in titles of courtesy and recognition becomes full-blown in the letter itself, whether we regard its general character or its special import; and I shall now consider these in their order.
In general character the letter is correspondence with a public enemy, in open war with our own country; or rather let me say it is correspondence with a public rebel. It is obvious that all correspondence of such a character, even without considering its special import, is open to suspicion. Throughout history it has been watched with jealous judgment, as in the cases of Bolingbroke and Atterbury in England, of Pichegru and Fouché in France. Tried even by those technical rules which in the present inquiry we reject, it may help to complete the evidence of treason itself. The well-chosen language of the Constitution, borrowed from an early resolution of the Continental Congress, by whom it was borrowed from the early English statute, authorizes this conclusion. According to the Constitution, “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” Here are two classes of cases: the first is levying war, which Jefferson Davis, as we have already seen, was notoriously doing at the date of this letter; and the second is adhering to enemies, giving them aid and comfort. Even if mere correspondence with an enemy would not bring the author within the scope of these words, clearly and beyond all question such correspondence is calculated to give at least moral aid and comfort to the enemy. Nor is it to be disregarded on this occasion, even if it does not reach the technical requirement of treason. If we listen to the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Bollman, we find this tribunal declaring, that, “if war be actually levied, that is, if a body of men be actually assembled for the purpose of effecting by force a treasonable purpose, all those who perform any part, however minute, or however remote from the scene of action, and who are actually leagued in the general conspiracy, are to be considered as traitors.”[131] Assuming the previous league, it cannot be doubted that an act of sympathy and friendship, though minute or remote, extended to persons in rebellion, would be evidence to bring the offender within the cautious grasp of the Constitution, even on technical grounds. If in the present case there was no previous league, there was at least a previous and most notorious fellowship, kindred to a league, by which the author was morally linked to the conspirators.
But the letter in question is a letter of sympathy and friendship, from beginning to end,—such a letter as only one friend could write to another friend. Dated at Washington on the 1st of March, it was calculated, if received by the Pretender, to give him hope and confidence, by inspiring the idea that here in the Senate Chamber there was at least one person still wearing this high trust, who, forgetting all that was due to his country, and forgetting all that was due to the Rebellion, reached forth his hand in friendly salutation. Dated at Washington on the 1st of March, it was calculated, if received, to awaken doubt of the loyalty of the Senate itself, and to encourage belief that here, in this sanctuary of the Constitution, treason might hatch undisturbed. So are we all knit together, that we are strengthened by human sympathy; and the Pretender would have felt new vigor, as the strength of the American Senate was transfused through the declared sympathies of an acknowledged member. The patriot soul recoils from the ancient traitor who flashed a signal torch from a beleaguered citadel; but one of our own number, who yet sits among us, has done this very thing.
Such is the necessary conclusion with regard to this letter, if we look at its general character. But when we consider its special import, the conclusion is still more irresistible. The letter clearly comes within the precise text of the Constitution. It is flat treason. I use no soft words, for the occasion does not allow it. Adhering to the enemy, giving them aid and comfort, must be proved by some overt act, of which Blackstone states the following instances: “As by giving them intelligence, by sending them provisions, by selling them arms, by treacherously surrendering a fortress, or the like.”[132] Such are precise words of this authority, and I do not stop to enforce them. But this letter is an overt act of adherence, giving aid and comfort, identical with the instances mentioned by Blackstone. Read it. “Allow me to introduce to your acquaintance,” so says the letter, “my friend Thomas B. Lincoln, of Texas.” The bearer of the letter is commended as a friend of the writer: but a friend is something more than associate or confederate; he is almost part of one’s self. Thus accredited, his errand is next announced: “He visits your capital mainly to dispose of what he regards a great improvement in fire-arms.” Mark the words “your capital.” Such is the language of an American Senator, writing to the Pretender, whose standard of Rebellion was then flying at Montgomery, in Alabama, which is thus deferentially designated as his capital. Observe next the declared object of the visit. It is “to dispose of what he regards a great improvement in fire-arms.” Thus does an American Senator send actual, open, unequivocal aid to the Chief of the Rebellion. It is true, he does not send him rifles or cannon; but he sends him “a great improvement in fire-arms,” through which rifles and cannon and other instruments of death, then preparing to be employed by Rebel hands against the patriot armies of the Republic, might be made more deadly. What are a few rifles, or a few cannon, by the side of such a comprehensive gift? When France, through the disguised agency of a successful dramatist,[133] sent ordnance and muskets to our Revolutionary fathers, she mixed herself positively in the contest, and, under the Law of Nations, Great Britain was justified in regarding her conduct as an act of war. And when an American Senator, without disguise, sends “a great improvement in fire-arms” to the Rebel chief, then engaged in levying war against his country, he mixes himself in the Rebellion, so that under Municipal Law he is a traitor. This conclusion is harsh, and I state it painfully; but it is according to the irresistible logic of the law and the facts.
But the letter contains other language to aggravate its guilt. Not content with sending the “great improvement in fire-arms,” the bearer is thus accredited to the Rebel chief: “I commend him to your favorable consideration, as a gentleman of the first respectability, and reliable in every respect.” An American citizen going forth on an errand of treason is thus exalted by an American Senator. The open traitor is announced as “a gentleman of the first respectability.” This is much to say of anybody; it is too much to say of an open traitor. But he is “reliable in every respect.” All language is to be construed with reference to the matter which it concerns. The bearer of this letter, going forth on an errand of treason, is “reliable in every respect”; and as the universal contains the special, he is reliable especially for the purposes of his treason: and this is the commendation which he bears to the Rebel chief from an American Senator.
Such a letter naturally begins, “My dear Sir,”—for the Chief of the Rebellion is evidently dear to the writer. That such a letter should be signed, “Very truly yours, Jesse D. Bright,” is natural also, and the words are not mere form. The author evidently, according to the contents of the letter,—as appears alike in its general character and its special import,—belongs to the Rebel chief, and is one of his “own.” In writing to the Rebel chief, he honestly begins, “My dear Sir,” and honestly closes, “Very truly yours”; but a person thus beginning and thus closing a letter of treason, volunteered to the declared enemy of his country, can hardly expect welcome to the confidential duties of this body.
Of course, in this inquiry, I assume the genuineness of the letter. If this letter were to be considered on technical grounds, the evidence would not be disdained even under the conservative words of our Constitution, according to which “no person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.” We have had the confession of the writer in open Senate, following similar confession in a supplementary letter, to which reference has been made in this debate. There can be no doubt on this point, and the writer must stand or fall by this letter, unless something has occurred since which can be accepted in extenuation of the unfortunate transaction.
It is true that the bearer of the letter was not able to present it. Before consummating his errand of treason, he was arrested by the watchful officers of the law, and, as we have already seen, is now in custody. The agent is in the hands of the law, while we debate on the seat of his principal. At the risk of introducing a superfluous topic, I cannot forbear adding that the crime of the principal was perfect when he wrote the letter and delivered it to his agent. It was expressly decided in England long ago, that a treasonable communication, “though intercepted, is an overt act of treason”; and this early principle was repeated by the Court of King’s Bench, speaking by the voice of Lord Mansfield, in the case of Dr. Hensey,[134] and again by the same court, under Lord Kenyon, in the case of William Stone.[135] It is completely applicable to the present case, even if our inquiry proceeded on technical grounds.
But the history of the transaction is not yet complete. Other incidents have occurred since, which are strangely offered in extenuation of the original crime. At the arrest of the agent, towards the close of last summer, the letter was found among his papers. Of course it excited much attention and some feeling. This was natural. At last the author, who still sits among us, addressed a second letter to his late colleague in this body [Mr. Fitch].
Mr. Bright (from his seat). It was not to my late colleague; it was to another Mr. Fitch.
Mr. Sumner. Very well. The letter, dated “At my Farm, September 7, 1861,” proceeds as follows: “The letter to which you refer is no doubt genuine. I have no recollection of writing it; but if Mr. Lincoln,” the bearer of the letter, “says I did, then I am entirely satisfied of the fact; for I am quite sure I would have given, as a matter of course, just such a letter of introduction to any friend who had asked it.” Thus, as late as the 7th of September, in the retirement of his farm, the original letter was approved and sanctioned. I would not exaggerate the effect of this second letter, as I need not exaggerate any point in this unhappy case; but, in view of the character of the original letter, the second letter can only be considered as marking either stolid hardihood of guilt or stolid insensibility to those rules of duty without which no man can be a good citizen; but either way, it only adds to the offensive character of the original transaction, and makes the duty of the Senate more plain.
I do not dwell on other topics of this second letter, because, though exhibiting bad temper and bad principles, they do not necessarily conduct to treason. The author is welcome to express “utter contempt for Abolitionism,” and also to declare his early and constant opposition to what he calls “the entire coercive policy of the Government.” Such declarations may render him an unsafe counsellor, but they do not stamp him as traitor. And it belongs to us, while purging this body of disloyalty in all its forms, to maintain at all hazards that freedom of speech which is herald and safeguard of all other freedom.
There is other testimony which aggravates the case still further. Not content with writing the traitorous letter, on the 1st of March, 1861, not content with approving and sanctioning this letter on the 7th of September, the author very recently rose in the place yet conceded to him in this Chamber, and deliberately said: “I have done nothing that I would not do over again under the same circumstances, and that I am not prepared to defend here or elsewhere.”[136] These words were uttered on this floor, in debate on another case which occurred as late as the 7th of January of this year. Thus was the original act of the 1st of March again affirmed, and the relations existing at that time with the Rebel chief proclaimed and vindicated; and all this in the American Senate, without a blush. Alas for that sensitive virtue which is the grace and strength alike of individuals and of communities! Surely it was wanting in him who could thus brave a just judgment: I fear it was wanting also in ourselves, when he was permitted to go without instant rebuke.
But I hear the suggestion, that at the date of this letter war was not yet flagrant, and that the author did not anticipate an actual conflict of arms. The first part of this suggestion is notoriously false. War had already begun, in the seizure of forts, and in the muster of Rebel armies; nay, more, in the very presence of the author, the gage of battle was flung down on this floor by Senators leaving to take part in the Rebellion. This has been unanswerably shown by the Senator from Minnesota [Mr. Wilkinson]. But the second part of the suggestion attributes to the author an ignorance of the well-known condition of things, inconsistent with his acknowledged intelligence. If the progress and development of the Rebellion had been in secret, if it had been masked by an impenetrable privacy, if it had been shrouded in congenial darkness, then this apology might be entitled to attention. But the Rebellion was open and complete; and on the 1st of March it was armed from head to foot, and in battle array against the National Government. Such was the actual condition of things, patent, certain, conspicuous to the whole country. And permit me to say that any apology now offered on pretext of ignorance shows simply a disposition to evade a just responsibility at any hazard of personal character.
I note the further suggestion, that the letter was written in carelessness, or in heedlessness, if you please, and without treasonable intent. Of course such a suggestion must be futile; for every man is presumed to know the natural consequences of his conduct. This is the rule of law, and the rule of patriotism. No man can be admitted to set up any carelessness or heedlessness as apology for treason. And I doubt not you will all agree with me, that a patriot Senator cannot be careless or heedless, when his country is in peril.
But I catch yet another suggestion, that this letter is trivial and insignificant to justify the condemnation of a Senator. Then, indeed, is disloyalty trivial; then is treason itself trivial. It is true, the letter is curt; it contains a single short paragraph only; but I have yet to learn that crime is measured by paragraphs or sentences, and that treason may not be found in a few words as well as in many. True, also, the letter is familiar in tone; but treason is a subtle wickedness, which sometimes stalks in state and sometimes shuffles in homely disguise. It is our duty to detect and to judge it, whatever form it takes.
Mr. President, let me not be unjust,—let me not lean even ungently against an offender; but you will pardon me, if I add, that against precise testimony, and in the face of unquestioned facts, I can find little in any present professions of loyalty to be accepted even in extenuation of the offence. The duty of the Senate depends upon former conduct, and not upon present professions. It is difficult to imagine any present professions which can restore the confidence essential to the usefulness of a Senator. It is in the hour of trial and doubt that men show themselves as they are, laying up for the future weal or woe,—and not afterwards, when all temptation to disloyalty is lost in the assured danger it must encounter, and when all positions have become fixed by events. Nor do I forget that mere professions have too often been a cover for falsehood. I refer again to the story of Benedict Arnold. After making his escape from the fort which he was about to betray, and finding shelter on board the British frigate, the Vulture, then swimming in the North River, he addressed a letter to General Washington, which begins as follows.
“On board the Vulture, 25 September, 1780.
“Sir:—The heart which is conscious of its own rectitude cannot attempt to palliate a step which the world may censure as wrong. I have ever acted from a principle of love to my country, since the commencement of the present unhappy contest between Great Britain and the Colonies: the same principle of love to my country actuates my present conduct, however it may appear inconsistent to the world, who very seldom judge right of any man’s actions.”[137]
Perhaps these very words might now be repeated by the person whose seat is in question. He may not fancy being classed with Benedict Arnold; but the professions of that fugitive traitor are identical with the professions to which we have listened on this floor. There is still another letter to General Washington from the same quarter, only a few days later, that is equally suggestive. Arnold protests against the arrest and impending execution of Major André, who, he says, acted under his directions, and his promise of protection; and he adds, “As commanding officer in the department, I had an undoubted right to transact all these matters,”[138]—precisely as the person whose seat is in question avers in letter and debate that he had undoubted right to open that traitorous correspondence with the Chief of the Rebellion. But I proceed no further with this parallel.
Sir, if the present question were to be decided on grounds of sympathy, it would be pleasant to record our names so as to give the least personal pain. But we should act weakly and ignobly, if on any such ground we failed in the double duty now so urgent,—first, to the Senate, of which we are members, and next, to that country which has a right to our truest and most unhesitating devotion. If there be among us any person still enjoying the confidential trusts, legislative, diplomatic, and executive, of this Chamber, who, since Rebellion hoisted its flag and pointed its cannon, has failed in that loyalty which is an inviolable obligation,—even though his offence may not have the deepest dye of treason,—he is unworthy of a seat in the Senate; and be assured, Sir, that our country, which knows so well how to pardon all that is pardonable, expects that no such person, whatever his present professions, shall be recognized any longer as Senator.
Do not hesitate, then. The case is clear, and impartial history will so record it. No argument, no apology, no extenuation can remove or mitigate its requirements. There is a courage which belongs to this peaceful Chamber as much as to the battle-field, and now is the occasion for it. Above all, let no false tenderness substitute sympathy for judgment; and remember well, that, while casting out a faithless Senator, you will elevate the Senate and inspire the country.
Mr. Sumner was followed on the same day by Mr. Lane, of Indiana, colleague of Mr. Bright, and then by Mr. Bright himself, who was especially bitter in allusion to him, alleging personal difference as the motive of his conduct. Mr. Sumner replied at once to this imputation.
Mr. President,—The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Bright], in the speech he has just made, referred to his personal relations with myself, and intimated, if he did not charge, that there had been some personal question or difference between us. Sir,——
Mr. Bright. Mr. President,——
Mr. Sumner. Excuse me.
Mr. Bright. I intimated no such thing, Sir.
Mr. Sumner. Let me finish. Sir, that is not the fact. Since I have been a member of this body, now more than ten years, it has been my fortune to mix in the debates on important public questions. On these occasions I have encountered, as the record shows, the opposition of that Senator, and of his constant associates in this body, all of them now in open rebellion. With the Senator and his constant associates I never had personal question or difference. Therefore, when the Senator asserts any such thing, or suggests it, he goes entirely beyond the record, and I could not allow the debate to close to-night without interposing my positive denial.
Sir, I have approached this painful question free from all personal prejudice. I have no feeling against the Senator. There has been nothing in our past relations to turn the scales by a feather’s weight.
The speech of Mr. Bright, to which allusion is made, does not appear in the official report. It was taken down and written out by the reporters, and then submitted to Mr. Bright, who never returned the manuscript. At the proper place in the Congressional Globe,[139] where the speech should be, is the following: “Mr. Bright next addressed the Senate. [His speech will be published in the Appendix.]” It is not found in the Appendix, which is explained by the following in the Index for the Session, under the name of Jesse D. Bright: “The manuscript of the speech referred to on page 418 was retained by Mr. B.” So that the speech was suppressed by him.
February 4th, after several others had spoken, Mr. Sumner spoke again as follows.
Mr. President,—This debate is about to close; but before the vote is taken I wish briefly to review it, and to show again that there is but one conclusion which can truly satisfy the Senate or the country. If your last judgment in this case were not of incalculable importance both for the Senate and the country, helping to elevate the one and to inspire the other, I should not venture again to claim your attention. Such a precedent, so fruitful in good influences, should be completely commended and vindicated, that it may remain forever a commanding example.
Among all who have spoken, we naturally yield precedence on this occasion to the Senator from Indiana [Mr. Bright]. His speech was not long, but it afforded ample ground for regret, if not for condemnation. It showed offensively the same spirit which is found in the original letter; nor did it suggest anything in apology, except that the bearer of the letter was his lifelong friend, and that, when writing the letter, he did not dream of war: in other words, an act of unquestionable disloyalty was put under the double cloak of lifelong friendship and professed ignorance. The real condition of things was not noticed, while he sought to serve a friend. Because the bearer of the letter was his lifelong friend, and because the Senator did not see war ahead, therefore he was justified in sending forth this lifelong friend on an errand of disloyalty, ay, of treason itself, and of making him the instrument of aid and comfort to an organized rebellion. Of course such an argument shows weakness, and not strength; and the very weakness out of which it sprung naturally became impassioned and unjust. If any personal feeling could disturb that perfect equanimity which with me, on this occasion, is a sentiment and a duty, I might complain of that vindictive tone which broke forth, not only in personal imputation, but also in menace that what I said on the case of the Senator I dared not say again here or elsewhere; but I make no complaint. It is sufficient for me that I spoke in the conscious discharge of duty, and that I know of nothing in the vindictive tone or in the menace of the Senator that can interfere with such duty, as I understand it. Therefore I put aside what he has said, whether of personal imputation, or of personal menace, or of argument; for they all leave him worse than if he had continued silent.
I put aside also the elaborate argument, lasting for more than a whole day, of the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Davis], practically exalting Slavery above the Constitution, and, while life is sacrificed and property is taken, while great rights are trodden down and all human energies are enlisted in defence of our country, insisting that Slavery alone is too sacred to be touched. Sir, I put aside this argument, because it is utterly out of place and irrelevant; and I trust it is not my habit in debate to ramble from that straight line which is the shortest way to the desired point. There is a time to sow and a time to reap; and there will be a time to discuss the constitutional power of Congress to end this Rebellion, even if, in so doing, it is constrained to end Slavery itself.
I put aside, also, the suggestion of the Senator from New York [Mr. Harris], to the effect that the Senator from Indiana is now on trial, that our proceedings are judicial, and that the evidence before us is insufficient to satisfy the requirements of such a case. Surely this assumption proceeds on a mistake. The Senator from Indiana is not on trial, in the ordinary understanding of that term; nor are our proceedings judicial; nor is the evidence insufficient for the case. Under the Constitution, each House, with the concurrence of two thirds, may expel a member; but this large discretionary power is given simply for the protection of the body in the exercise of an honest and honorable self-defence. The Senate itself is on trial just as much as the Senator; and permit me to say that the Senate will condemn itself, if it allow any person to continue among its members who has forfeited that peculiar confidence in his loyalty which is essential to his usefulness as Senator. It is vain to say that the evidence is insufficient. Technically and judicially it may be so; but according to all legislative precedents and all the rules of common life it is obviously sufficient, for it is beyond all practical doubt. My friend from New York did not hesitate at this session to vote for the expulsion of Breckinridge, of Polk, and of Johnson, without one scrap of evidence that he would recognize as a judge on the bench. How can he require evidence now which he did not require then?
I put aside, also, the argument of the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cowan], so carefully and elaborately stated, to the effect that on the 1st of March, when the disloyal letter was written, there was no war actually existing between the Rebel States and the United States. Even if this assumption were correct, even if the United States were still hesitating what course to adopt, nothing is clearer than this: the Rebel States were in rebellion,—organized, armed, and offensive,—with the avowed purpose of overthrowing the National Government within their borders; and such rebellion was, beyond all question, a levying of war under the Constitution of the United States, so that all adherence to it, giving aid and comfort, was treason itself. But even if not disposed to admit actual levying of war on the part of the Rebels,—though of this there can be no doubt,—there was surely preparation and purpose so to do; and any contribution to such preparation and purpose was disloyalty, if not treason. Clearly, Jefferson Davis at that time was a traitor, at the head of traitors. What, then, can be thought of a Senator who offered arms to him?
I put aside, also, the suggestion of the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Ten Eyck], founded on the language of the President in his inaugural address of the 4th of March. It is true that the President spoke of the Rebels in generous, fraternal words, such as became the Chief Magistrate of a great people, not yet renouncing the idea of conquering by kindness, and not forgetting that Leviathan was tamed by a cord. But, whatever the language of the President, it is none the less clear that the Rebellion at that very moment was completely organized by a succession of overt acts, which fixed the treasonable position of its authors, and especially of its chief, to whom the letter offering arms was addressed.
I put aside, also, the argument of the Senator from California [Mr. Latham], especially that part founded on the tolerance shown to treason, when uttered here by the retiring Rebels. Nobody questions that treason was uttered on this floor, or that treasonable counsels went forth from this Chamber. But the Senate was then controlled by the associates of the Senator of Indiana, and it was not in our power to check or chastise the traitors. It is within the recollection of many that those utterances were heard on this side of the Chamber, not only with indignant patriotism, but with bitter, stinging regret at the abject condition of the Senate, then so entirely in the hands of traitors that we were obliged to hear in silence. Surely such utterances, wicked with treason, constituting the very voice of the Rebellion, cannot be an apology for the disloyal letter of the Senator; nor can silence, when we were powerless to act, be any argument for silence now that power and responsibility are ours.
I agree with the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Browning], that the whole conduct and declaration of the author may be legitimately employed to elucidate the character of this letter; but I found no supplementary charge on such conduct or declaration. Others may use the argument that the Senator has declared himself against coercion of the Rebel States, or that he has refused to vote the necessary means for the suppression of the Rebellion; but I use no such argument. Much as I lament such a course, and justly obnoxious as I regard it, yet I cannot consider it as an argument for expulsion of the Senator. Freedom of debate is among the triumphs of modern civilization; and it shall never be impaired by any vote or word of mine. To this freedom I have held fast, when almost alone in this body; and what I have steadily vindicated for myself against all odds I shall never deny to another. Therefore, if I am the judge, there is no Senator who will not always be perfectly free to speak and vote as he thinks best on every question that shall legitimately arise; but beyond this immunity he must not go. He shall not talk treason; he shall not parley with rebellion; he shall not address to it words of sympathy and good-will; especially, he shall not recognize its chief in his pretended character of President, nor shall he send him improved fire-arms to be employed in the work of treason.
Putting aside all these considerations, the case against the Senator from Indiana is clear. All apologies, all excuses, utterly fail. It is vain to say that the bearer of the letter was his lifelong friend, as it is vain to say, also, that the Senator did not dream that there would be war. The first apology is as feeble as the second is audacious. If the Senator did not dream that there would be war, then why send arms to the chief of the Rebellion? To Jefferson Davis as a private citizen, to Jefferson Davis as a patriot Senator, there was no occasion or motive for sending arms. It was only to Jefferson Davis as chief of the Rebellion that arms could be sent; and to him, in that character, they were sent. But even if the Rebellion were not at that time manifest in overt acts,—as it clearly was,—still the sending of arms was a positive provocation and contribution to its outbreak, especially when the arms were sent by a Senator. And now, at the risk of repetition, I say again, it is not necessary that the war should have been commenced on the part of the United States. It is enough, that, on the part of Jefferson Davis, at the date of the letter, there was actual levying of war, or, at least, a purpose to levy war; and in either of these two cases, the latter as well as the former, the guilt of the Senator offering arms is complete,—call it treason, or simply disloyalty, if you will.
It is vain that you seek to surround the Senatorial letter-writer with the technical defences of a judicial tribunal. This will not do. They are out of place. God grant, that, in the administration of justice, a citizen arraigned for his life may always be presumed innocent till he is proved guilty! But, while zealously asserting this presumption in a criminal trial, I utterly deny it in the present case. The two proceedings are radically unlike. In the one we think most of the individual; in the other we think most of the Senate. The flag-officer of a fleet, or the commander of a garrison, when only suspected of correspondence with the enemy, is without delay deprived of command; nor can any technical presumption of innocence be invoked in his defence. For the sake of the fleet, for the sake of the garrison, which must not be betrayed, it is your duty to see that he is deprived of command. Nor can a suspected Senator, with all his confidential trusts, legislative, diplomatic, and executive, expect any tolerance denied to a suspected flag-officer, or to a suspected commander of a garrison. If not strong, pure, and upright in himself, he must not expect to find strength, purity, and uprightness in any presumption of innocence, or in any technical rule of law. For the sake of the Senate, he must be deprived of his place. Afterwards, should he be arraigned at law, he will be allowed to employ all the devices and weapons familiar to judicial proceedings.
There is another illusion into which the Senator has fallen; and it seems to me that the Senator from New York, and perhaps other Senators, have followed him. It is the assumption, that, in depriving the Senator of his seat, we take from him something that is really his. This is a mistake. A Senator is simply a trustee. The Senator is trustee for Indiana. But his fidelity as trustee is now drawn in question; and since no person is allowed to continue as trustee whose character is not above suspicion,—inspired uberrimâ fide, according to the language of the law,—the case of the Senator should obviously be remanded to the State for which he still assumes to act. Should he be wronged by expulsion, then will that State promptly return him to his present trust, and our judgment will be generously reversed. The Senator has no right for himself here; he does not represent himself; but he represents his State, of which he is the elected, most confidential trustee; and when his fidelity is openly impeached, there is no personal right which can become his shield. Tell me not of the seat of the Senator. Let the Senator be cautious in language. By courtesy the seat may be his; but in reality the seat belongs to Indiana; and this honored State, unsurpassed in contributions to the patriot armies of the Republic, may justly protest against longer misrepresentation on this floor by a disloyal Senator.
But the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cowan] exclaims—and the Senator from New York follows him—that the offence of the Senator is “treason or nothing.” For myself, I have no hesitation in expressing the conviction that it is treason. If it be not treason in a Senator to send arms to an open traitor, whom he at the same time acknowledges in his traitorous character, then it were better to blot out the crime of treason from our statute-book, and to rase its definition from the Constitution. Sir, it is treason. But even if not treason according to all the technical requirements of that crime, obviously and unquestionably it is an act of disloyalty so discreditable, so unworthy, and so dangerous as to render the duty of the Senate imperative. Is it nothing that the Senator should write a friendly letter, make open acknowledgment, and offer warlike aid to a public traitor? Is it nothing, that, sitting in this Chamber, the Senator should send to the chief of the Rebellion words of sympathy and arms of power? Is it nothing that the Senator should address the traitor in terms of courtesy and official respect? Is it nothing that the Senator should call the traitor “His Excellency,” and should hail him “President of the Confederation of States”? And is it nothing that the Senator should offer to the traitor thus addressed what of all things he most coveted, to be turned against the Constitution which the Senator has sworn to support?
“Is this nothing?
Why, then the world, and all that’s in ’t, is nothing;
The covering sky is nothing: …
… nor nothing have these nothings,
If this be nothing.”
Sir, the case is too plain for argument. You cannot argue that two and two make four, that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, or that the sun shines in the sky. All these are palpable to reason or to sense. But, if I did not see before me honored Senators, valued friends, who think otherwise, I should say that to the patriot soul it is hardly less palpable that a Senator, acknowledging in friendly correspondence the chief of a Rebellion set on foot in defiance of the United States, and sending to him arms, whose only possible use was in upholding the Rebellion, has justly forfeited that confidence which is as much needed as a commission to assure his seat in this Chamber. The case is very plain, and we have taken too much time to consider it. We have been dilatory when we ought to have been prompt, and have hearkened to technical defences when we should have surrendered to that indignation which disloyalty is calculated to arouse.
The Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Clark] has reminded us—as John Quincy Adams reminded another generation—of that beautiful work of Art in the other wing of the Capitol, where the Muse of History, with faithful pen, registers the transactions of each day, and he trusted that over against the record of past disloyalty another page might beam with the just judgment that followed. But there is another work of Art, famous as Art itself, and proceeding from its greatest master, which may admonish us precisely what to do. The ancient satrap Heliodorus, acting in the name of a distant sovereign, entered that sumptuous temple dedicated to the true God, where stood the golden candlesticks and hung the veil which was yet unrent, and profanely seized the riches under protection of the altar itself, when suddenly, at the intercession of the high priest, an angelic horseman armed with thongs is seen to dash the intruder upon the marble pavement, and to sweep him with scourges from the sacred presence. Now that disloyalty, in the acknowledged name of a distant traitor, intrudes into this sanctuary of the Constitution, and insists upon a place at our altar, there should be indignant chastisement, swift as the angelic horseman that moves immortal in the colors of Raffaelle. In vain do you interpose appeals for lenity or forbearance. The case does not allow them. I know well the beauty and the greatness of charity. For the Senator I have charity; but there is a better charity due to the Senate, whose solemn trusts are in jeopardy; and even if you do not accept completely the saying of Antiquity, which makes duty to country the great charity embracing all other charities, you will not deny that it is at least a commanding obligation, by the side of which all that we owe the Senator is small. And, Sir, let us not forget, let the precious example be present in our souls, that He who taught the beauty and the greatness of charity was the first to scourge the money-changers from the temple of the Lord.
Mr. Davis, of Kentucky, followed. Some of his words are quoted, from their bearing on Mr. Sumner’s opposition to Slavery.
“The gentleman shakes his imperial locks like a Jove, and menaces death and destruction to Slavery. I thank my stars that the gentleman is not yet the Jove of this land, nor the Jove of this Senate either. There are minds as exalted and as cultivated as his, and there are wills as patriotic and as true to the Constitution and to the country as his, and altogether independent of his; and it is to those minds that I appeal, whenever a question involving the interests of my constituents comes up here, not to the mind of the gentleman from Massachusetts. I know, Sir, what fate would await Slavery, if he could speak the fiat. He is, however, but one member of this body.”
February 5th, after further debate, the final vote was taken on the resolution of expulsion, and resulted in yeas 32, nays 14.
The Vice-President. Upon this question the yeas are 32, the nays are 14. More than two thirds having agreed to the resolution, it is passed. [Applause in the galleries.]
The Vice-President. Order! Order!
The Washington correspondent of a Northern journal described the scene of the vote.
“All seemed to feel that they were acting, not for the present only, but for coming time. The great crowd of spectators filling every available spot, and the presence of many of the members of the House, added to the impressiveness of the scene. Amid breathless anxiety and profound silence the roll-call commenced. For a time the ayes and noes bore a doubtful proportion. Senator Willey, having held his vote in abeyance till the last, had just announced that he should vote against the expulsion, and Senator Carlile, who had been generally supposed to favor the resolution, also joined his colleague among the noes. As the vote proceeded, the ayes became almost uninterrupted, and we were prepared for the result. A few moments more and the event was over,—felt by those who witnessed it to be scarcely less solemn than the infliction of death itself, and which will probably be cited in precedent when all its spectators shall have long been dust.”
ANSWER OF A WITNESS CRIMINATING HIMSELF.
Remarks in the Senate, on the Bill relating to Witnesses before Committees, January 22, 1862.
In considering the bill amending the provisions of the second section of the Act of January 24, 1857, enforcing the attendance of witnesses before Committees of either House of Congress, the following clause was objected to: “And no witness shall hereafter be allowed to refuse to testify to any fact or to produce any paper touching which he shall be examined by either House of Congress or any Committee of either House, for the reason that his testimony touching such fact or the production of such paper may tend to disgrace him or otherwise render him infamous.” In the debate that ensued Mr. Sumner spoke as follows.
MR. PRESIDENT,—There seems to be much inquiry as to the Common Law on this question, and various points are presented.
It is asked, for instance, whether a witness is obliged to answer, where his answer will render him infamous. I know the differences on this point, but cannot doubt that by the Common Law the witness is obliged to answer in such a case,—most certainly, if the question is relevant and material.
Again, it is asked if a witness is permitted to determine for himself whether to answer the question proposed. Here also the Common Law, when properly interpreted, is clear. The witness cannot be the final judge. He must submit to the decision of the Court, which will determine whether his answer may criminate him, by revealing either guilt or a possible link in the evidence of guilt.
But then, Mr. President, why speak of the Common Law? Why revert to these antiquarian inquiries, when we have the Constitution of the United States specifically dealing with this very question? In the fifth article of the Amendments it is provided that “no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” Such are the very words of the Constitution, derived from the Common Law, but imparting precision and limitation to the Common Law. Now it seems to me it will be enough, if, on this occasion, we follow the text of the Constitution. As in the pending proposition there is nothing inconsistent with the Constitution, we need not ransack the wide and ancient demesnes of the Common Law to stir up difficulties. Whatever the rule at Common Law, plainly under the Constitution its operation is restricted to a “criminal case,” leaving a case of infamy untouched.
I am free to say, Sir,—and what I am about to remark is particularly in answer to the Senator from New York [Mr. Harris],—that, if this question were presented independent of the Constitution, I should be little disposed to follow the Common Law. In my judgment the Common Law is less wise here than it ought to be. I cannot but think that the jurisprudence of other civilized countries, derived from the Roman Law, supplies a better rule. There is no other civilized jurisprudence under which a witness is excused from answering any question, though the answer may affect his character or honor, or even render him criminal. The Common Law, at an early day, under a generous inspiration, adopted a contrary principle, which, crossing the ocean with our forefathers, is embodied in the text of the Constitution. Finding it there, I accept it; certainly I do not quarrel with it; but I cannot consent that it shall receive any expansion, especially interfering with the public interests. I hope the bill may pass as it comes from the House, without amendment. It is a good bill.
Mr. Harris, of New York, moved as an amendment: “Nor shall this Act be so construed as to require any witness to testify to any fact which shall tend to criminate him.” The question, being taken by yeas and nays, resulted, yeas 19, nays 21; so the amendment failed.
The bill was then passed, and, January 24th, approved by the President.[140]
LIMITATION OF DEBATE IN THE SENATE.
Remarks in the Senate, on a Five Minutes’ Rule, January 27 and 29, 1862.
A Joint Rule, moved by Mr. Wade, of Ohio, to facilitate secret sessions, contained a restriction on debate, which was afterwards struck out on his own motion. Mr. Sumner united with others against this restriction, and some of his remarks are preserved here as a record of opinion.
January 27th, he said:—
I am glad the Senator has modified his rule, so far as it bears on the length of speeches. He thinks a speech of five minutes long enough. If all had the happy faculty of my distinguished friend, who so easily speaks to the point, I doubt not it would be long enough; but we must take Senators as they are, according to our experience, and allow for their ways. Besides, such a rule would be a departure from the constant policy of the Senate.
The Joint Rule was much discussed, and underwent various modifications, some on motion of Mr. Sumner. January 29th, a substitute was moved by Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, and subsequently adopted, which contained the restriction on debate abandoned by his colleague, as follows:—
“If decided in the affirmative, debate shall be confined to the subject-matter, and be limited to five minutes by any member. Provided, That any member shall be allowed five minutes to explain or oppose any pertinent amendment.”
This led Mr. Sumner to speak again.
I must confess that I hesitate to place among Rules of the Senate a limitation of debate to five minutes,—not that I desire in our conversations on business to exceed that allowance. Personally I am content with what pleases my associates; but I doubt the expediency of such a rule, which thus far is a stranger among us.
Limitations of debate in various forms play a large part in the other Chamber. Shall they begin here, even in the small way proposed? A five minutes’ rule is not the previous question, with its death-dealing garrote, but it is a limitation of debate, and the Senate has from the beginning set itself against any such restriction, insisting always upon the largest latitude and amplest opportunity.
If there were any obvious good to be accomplished by such a rule, if there were any exigency seeming to require the sacrifice, I should welcome it; but I put it to Senators, whether experience in Executive Session does not show that it is unnecessary. I cannot doubt that the very business contemplated by the rule would be discussed directly, plainly, briefly, according to the essential nature of the question, even without any restriction. But, if unnecessary, why make a change which will look so ill that it were better to bear inconvenience rather than have such a deformity?
It is enough, if on a critical occasion we are able to close our doors, leaving the great privilege of debate unchecked, to be employed as sword or buckler, according to the promptings of patriotism and the conscience of Senators.
INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION AT LONDON.
Speech in the Senate, on the Joint Resolution providing for Representation there, January 31, 1862.
January 31st, the Senate proceeded to consider the joint resolution reported by Mr. Sumner from the Committee on Foreign Relations, providing for representation at the Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations at London in the year 1862.
Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, said that he was “entirely opposed to this whole thing.” Mr. Sumner then spoke as follows.
MR. PRESIDENT,—The Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Hale] objects to the joint resolution, but he assigns no reason. When I make a personal appeal to him, he declines to answer. Of course, that is according to his right. He may be silent, though we are always too happy when he speaks. It becomes my duty, therefore, to explain the resolution, which I shall do in few words.
At the extra session of Congress in July last, a joint resolution was adopted in the following words:—
“That the President be, and he hereby is, authorized to take such measures as shall to him seem best to facilitate a proper representation of the industrial interests of the United States at the Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations to be holden at London in the year 1862, and the sum of two thousand dollars is hereby appropriated for the incidental expenses thereof.”
The resolution passed Congress, and was approved by the President on the 27th of July. Under it a Commission was organized by the President, with the Secretary of State as Chairman. Associated with him were eminent gentlemen from different walks of life, from different parts of the country——
Mr. Grimes. What parts?
Mr. Sumner. All parts,—the West, the North, and the East.
Mr. Grimes. Who from the West?
Mr. Sumner. You will find the names on the printed list. At a meeting in Washington, a sub-committee was organized for the direction of business. Through this sub-committee a correspondence has been conducted with persons all over the country interested in the Exhibition, and industrial products have been gathered at New York, to be forwarded to London; but their proceedings are stopped for want of means, and the actual question is simply this: Will the Senate allow the business already commenced under their auspices to fail, or will they make the needful appropriation to carry it forward?
There is at least one precedent. Ten years ago witnessed an industrial exhibition in London, which attracted the attention of the civilized world. There was no provision in advance by the Government of the United States for any representation there; but patriotic citizens came forward at the last moment, volunteered money and representation, and through their activity we became honorably known there,—so, indeed, I think I may say, as to gain renown for our industrial products. I would not exaggerate; but nobody can forget the triumph of the American reaper or the American mower. I believe I state what cannot be denied, when I say, that, through the representation of American industry at that exhibition, we gained not only fame abroad, but new fields of activity for our industry, and new markets for our homely, but most useful products.
Now there is to be another exhibition, and the question is, whether our country shall be represented. An appropriation is needed for this purpose. The Committee, after most careful deliberation, not acting, I assure you, hastily, came to the conclusion that our country should be represented there, and they recommended the appropriation of the modest sum of $35,000. Persons interested in the subject desired a larger appropriation. The Committee concluded in favor of $35,000, as the utmost they would ask from Congress at the present time. Accordingly they have made that recommendation, believing it for the general welfare.
I do not know the objection of my friend from New Hampshire. Perhaps he is against any representation. If so, I can understand that he should oppose the appropriation. But is his objection founded on grounds of economy peculiar to the present moment, or is it because he is against such appearance at any time? If founded on grounds of economy peculiar to the present moment, I must say I cannot enter into his idea. Nobody more completely than myself can appreciate the importance of bending every corporal and intellectual agent to the work of putting down the Rebellion; but I am unwilling that meanwhile all the glorious and beneficent arts of peace should slumber. Nor would I, even while pushing this war to victory, cease to watch with guardian care the industrial interests of my country. Those interests, I am sure, will be advanced, if we allow them to be represented at this great centre of industry; and so will all the national resources increase and multiply. And this is not simply because the exhibition is in London, or because it may open a market in London, but because through London we approach all the great markets of the world; and while making our products known in the great metropolis, we make them known wherever civilization extends. The exhibition will be an immense fair, to which exhibitors can have access only through their respective governments. I am unwilling to deprive American citizens of this opportunity.
I assume, therefore, that my friend cannot be against contributing to this exhibition simply on grounds peculiar to this moment. It must be on some other broader, more general ground. I must say that I cannot enter into that idea, either. If it was good for us to be represented ten years ago,—and I believe all, after the exhibition, were satisfied that it was good for us,—I believe it better now. Surely, all this my friend has at heart. I hope he will not forget that the interests of farmers, the interests of inventors, the interests of mechanics, the interests of all who toil and of all who produce,—in one word, the great diversified interests of the people, cannot fail to be promoted by this opportunity. And here is reason enough for the small outlay.
In the brief debate that ensued, Mr. Lane, of Indiana, said:—
“The sword and the cannon are the reapers now, and the Rebels are the harvest; and to that purpose and to those reapers I shall devote my attention.”
The joint resolution was lost,—yeas 17, nays 22; so that at the London Exhibition the United States had no representation.
ORDER IN BUSINESS: EACH QUESTION BY ITSELF.
Remarks in the Senate, February 6, 1862.
The Senate had under discussion an Army Bill, when Mr. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, moved an amendment reducing and regulating the mileage of Members of Congress. The remarks of Mr. Sumner were not addressed to the merits of the question, but to the impropriety of dealing with it in the pending bill.
MR. PRESIDENT,—It seems clear that the discussion in which we are launched is a departure from the question before the Senate. The pending bill is “to define the pay and emoluments of certain officers of the army, and for other purposes,” and an amendment is moved to reduce and regulate Congressional mileage. By what process of association the two are brought together it is not easy to see. Certainly nobody looking for light on Congressional mileage would think of exploring our army legislation.
My experience teaches me the advantage, not to say the beauty of order, in the business of legislation, as in all other business. There is a proper place for everything, and everything should be in its proper place. Especially should things plainly incongruous be kept apart, and without commixture. But what more unreasonable than the commixture proposed? Each measure may be good in itself, but the two do not go together. They are without natural or logical connection. One is not the incident of the other, nor in any respect germane to the other. They should be in separate bills, and be discussed separately.
Here we are in high debate on the Army Bill, and all at once the subject is changed, although the original bill is still before the Senate. But Congressional mileage is enough by itself. Already it has occupied the attention of the country, has been discussed in the newspapers, and especially in the other House. It is a Serbonian bog, not indeed “where armies whole have sunk,” but only Members of Congress. Are you ready, while considering another question, to revive this debate, making it the accident of another, with which it has nothing to do? Is it advisable? Is it according to the natural order of business?
The Mileage Amendment was adopted, but the bill failed between the two Houses.
STATE REBELLION, STATE SUICIDE; EMANCIPATION AND RECONSTRUCTION.
Resolutions in the Senate, February 11, 1862. With Appendix.
Mr. Sumner sent to the Chair a series of resolutions, which he described by their title. They were then read, as follows.
Resolutions declaratory of the Relations between the United States and the Territory once occupied by certain States, and now usurped by pretended Governments without Constitutional or Legal Right.
Whereas certain States, rightfully belonging to the Union of the United States, have, through their respective Governments, wickedly undertaken to abjure all those duties by which their connection with the Union was maintained, to renounce all allegiance to the Constitution, to levy war upon the National Government, and, for the consummation of this treason, have unconstitutionally and unlawfully confederated together with the declared purpose of putting an end, by force, to the supremacy of the Constitution within their respective limits;
And whereas this condition of insurrection, organized by pretended Governments, openly exists in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Virginia,—except in Eastern Tennessee and Western Virginia,—and the President of the United States, in a proclamation duly made in conformity with an Act of Congress, has declared the same to exist throughout this territory, with the exceptions already named;
And whereas the extensive territory thus usurped by these pretended Governments and organized into a hostile confederation belongs to the United States, as an inseparable part thereof, under the sanctions of the Constitution, to be held in trust for the inhabitants in the present and future generations, and is so completely interlinked with the Union that it is forever dependent thereupon;
And whereas the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, cannot be displaced within this territory, but must ever continue the supreme law thereof, notwithstanding the doings of any pretended Governments, acting singly or in confederation, hostile to its supremacy: Therefore,—
1. Resolved, That any vote of secession, or other act, by a State hostile to the supremacy of the Constitution within its territory, is inoperative and void against the Constitution, and, when sustained by force, becomes a practical abdication by the State of all rights under the Constitution, while the treason it involves works instant forfeiture of all functions and powers essential to the continued existence of the State as a body politic; so that from such time forward the territory falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress, as other territory, and the State becomes, according to the language of the law, felo de se.
2. That any combination of men assuming to act in the place of such State, and attempting to ensnare or coerce its inhabitants into a confederation hostile to the Union, is rebellious, treasonable, and destitute of all moral authority; and such combination is a usurpation incapable of constitutional existence and utterly lawless, so that everything dependent upon it is without constitutional or legal support.
3. That the termination of a State under the Constitution necessarily causes the termination of those peculiar local institutions which, having no origin in the Constitution, or in natural right independent of the Constitution, are upheld by the sole and exclusive authority of the State.
4. That Slavery, being a peculiar local institution, derived from local law, without any origin in the Constitution or in natural right, is upheld by the sole and exclusive authority of the State, and must therefore cease, legally and constitutionally, when the State on which it depends has lapsed; for the incident must follow the principal.[141]
5. That, in the exercise of exclusive jurisdiction over the territory once occupied by the States, it is the duty of Congress to see that the supremacy of the Constitution is maintained in its essential principles, so that everywhere in this extensive territory Slavery shall cease to exist in fact, as it has already ceased to exist in law or Constitution.
6. That any recognition of Slavery in such territory, or surrender of slaves under pretended laws of such States, by an officer of the United States, civil or military, is a practical recognition of the pretended Governments, to the exclusion of the jurisdiction of Congress under the Constitution, and is in the nature of aid and comfort to the Rebellion that has been organized.
7. That any such recognition of Slavery, or surrender of pretended slaves, besides being a practical recognition of the pretended Governments, giving them aid and comfort, is a denial of the rights of persons who by the action of the States have become free, so that, under the Constitution, they cannot again be enslaved.
8. That allegiance from the inhabitant and protection from the Government are corresponding obligations, dependent upon each other; so that, while the allegiance of every inhabitant of this territory, without distinction of class or color, is due to the United States, and cannot in any way be defeated by the action of any pretended Government, or by any pretence of property or claim to service, the corresponding obligation of protection is at the same time due from the United States to every such inhabitant, without distinction of class or color; and it follows that inhabitants held as slaves, whose paramount allegiance is to the United States, may justly look to the National Government for protection.
9. That the duty cast upon Congress by the action of the States is enforced by the positive requirement of the Constitution, that “no State shall enter into any confederation,” or, “without the consent of Congress, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace,” or “enter into any agreement or compact with another State,” or “grant letters of marque and reprisal,” or “coin money,” or “emit bills of credit,” or, “without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports,” all of which have been done by these pretended Governments, and also by the positive injunction of the Constitution, addressed to the Nation, that “the United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of government”; and that, in pursuance of this duty cast upon Congress, and further enjoined by the Constitution, Congress will assume complete jurisdiction of such vacated territory, where such unconstitutional and illegal things have been attempted, and will proceed to establish therein republican forms of government under the Constitution, and, in the execution of this trust, will provide carefully for the protection of all the inhabitants thereof, for the security of families, the organization of labor, the encouragement of industry, and the welfare of society, and will in every way discharge the duties of a just, merciful, and paternal Government.
When the reading was completed, Mr. Sumner asked that the resolutions be printed and laid upon the table, adding that at some future day he hoped to call them up for consideration. Then ensued a scene not inaptly called a “flurry,” with regard to the disposition of the resolutions,—some wishing their reference to a committee, where they would be out of the way, and others wishing them laid on the table, so as to avoid present debate. Mr. Sumner made the latter motion, so as to keep them on the calendar of the Senate.
Mr. Davis, of Kentucky, moved at once their reference to the Committee on the Judiciary. But the motion to lay on the table had precedence. Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, said: “I do not think we ought to take time now in discussing this question.” Mr. Anthony, of Rhode Island, said: “If the motion to lay on the table be lost, the motion to refer will be debatable. I vote ‘yea.’” The motion of Mr. Sumner prevailed,—yeas 21, nays 15.
Chief among the nays were the Democrats and the ordinary revilers of Antislavery movements; but the division did not indicate definite opinions on the resolutions. It was in no sense an adverse vote, although often cited as such by hostile partisans, which was the more curious as Mr. Sumner voted with the majority.
February 13th, Mr. Davis introduced a series of counter resolutions, eight in number, which were ordered to lie on the table and be printed. Their special object was the protection of loyal persons, so that no form of confiscation or forfeiture should reach them,—meaning, of course, protection against Emancipation,—“whilst inflicting on the guilty leaders condign and exemplary punishment, granting amnesty and oblivion to the comparatively innocent masses.”
The difference developed here entered into subsequent debates. Mr. Sumner regarded Slavery as the great offender, besides being a constant wrong, and he wished it destroyed completely. Others sought to confine the sphere of Emancipation to the slaves of Rebels.
After certain Senatorial protests at a subsequent day, the question of Congressional power, presented by the resolutions, and involving Reconstruction, dropped out of sight, partly because the Proclamation of Emancipation provided a method against Slavery, and partly because Rebel resistance and the cloud which soon afterwards lowered upon our arms prevented Reconstruction from becoming what was called “a practical question,” except to those who, anticipating the future, saw how much would be gained by a sure rule capable of immediate application as the national power prevailed.
A speech on this subject, especially vindicating the positions he had taken, was prepared by Mr. Sumner during this session; but the proper occasion for its delivery not occurring, it was handed over to the Atlantic Monthly, where it appeared as an article, October, 1863. Some of the points of the resolutions reappeared in the speech of the 19th May, on “Rights of Sovereignty and Rights of War”;[142] also in the resolutions of June 2 and 6, 1862, relating to the Provisional Government of North Carolina.[143]