Sumner was not alone in maintaining novel opinions concerning the relation of the seceded States to the Federal Government. A theory destined to exert even greater influence in shaping the plan of reconstruction finally adopted was announced at the very commencement of hostilities by Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, then one of the foremost members of the Republican party and a few years later its acknowledged leader in the House. Unlike the Massachusetts Senator, Mr. Stevens never formulated his views of State status; but as he urged them on almost every conceivable occasion the essential principles of his system may be easily collected from his numerous speeches in Congress. Subjects of legislation only remotely related to his favorite topic appear to have been regarded by him as important chiefly because of the opportunity afforded to express his sentiments on the measures necessary to reorganization. These opinions, he declared, had been deliberately formed; we know that to the end they were persistently urged and ably defended. Because of their radical nature and the frequency with which they were reiterated Stevens was by many regarded as a sort of fanatic; this estimate was confirmed, no doubt, by his bodily deformity as well as by an apparent want of amiability and a certain bluntness of expression. Even by keen observers he was at first considered a man of mediocre ability. But, though not to be compared with the giant race of an earlier generation, he was a statesman far above the common-place. Among the multitude of plans and theories offered in Congress his system was distinguished for the harmony of its parts; and enemies who hated, no less than followers who feared, him were forced to admit the consistency of his principles.
The limitations of Stevens in the field of constructive statesmanship cannot now be discussed; for their consideration belongs properly to an examination of the first reconstruction act, which was no more than a modification of his theory. Long before Sumner’s plan had agitated timid conservatives the Pennsylvanian leader by his extreme opinions had astonished Congress. When the question of discharging from labor or service those slaves employed in hostility to the United States came before the House at the special session beginning July 4, 1861, Stevens said:
Mr. Speaker, I thought the time had come when the laws of war were to govern our action; when constitutions, if they stood in the way of the laws of war in dealing with the enemy, had no right to intervene. Who pleads the Constitution against our proposed action? Who says the Constitution must come in, in bar of our action? It is the advocates of rebels, of rebels who have sought to overthrow the Constitution and trample it in the dust—who repudiate the Constitution. Sir, these rebels, who have disregarded and set at defiance that instrument, are, by every rule of municipal and international law, estopped from pleading it against our action. Who, then, is it that comes to us and says, “You cannot do this thing, because your Constitution does not permit it?” The Constitution! Our Constitution, which you repudiate and trample under foot, forbids it! Sir, it is an absurdity. There must be a party in court to plead it, and that party, to be entitled to plead it in court, must first acknowledge its supremacy, or he has no business to be in court at all. I repeat, then, that those who bring in this plea here, in bar of our action, are the advocates of rebels. They are nothing else, whatever they intend. I mean it, of course, in a legal sense. I mean they are acting in the capacity of counsellors-at-law for the rebels; they are speaking for them, and not for us—who are the plaintiffs in this transaction. I deny that they have any right to plead at all. I deny that they have any standing in court. I deny that they have any right to invoke this Constitution, which they deny has authority over them, which they set at defiance and trample under foot. I deny that they can be permitted to come here and tell us we must be loyal to the Constitution.[[298]]
The expectation almost universally cherished at this time was that when the insurrection should have been suppressed, as it was confidently believed it speedily would be, the erring States, without the interposition of Federal authority, would resume their normal relations to the General Government. With this state of public opinion in mind it will readily be perceived how great an interval separated Mr. Stevens from both parties in Congress. The opening sentence of the remarks quoted contains the essential idea of his theory of the change resulting from rebellion. Armed secession had unlocked the war powers, and the Constitution, where it conflicted with these powers, had ceased to be a restraint upon government. The military had risen superior to the civil authority. The principle was boldly and emphatically announced that those who repudiated and defied the supreme law could not at the same time plead its provisions.
On January 8, 1863, the appropriation bill being under consideration, an amendment was offered to add to the clause “for compensation of thirty-three commissioners, at $3,000 each, and eleven clerks, at $1,200 each, $112,200,” the following:
Provided, A sufficient sum shall be collected in the insurrectionary States to pay said salaries: And provided further, That no greater sum shall at any time be paid to said commissioners, or to any of them, than shall have been collected from the taxes in the insurrectionary States, and paid into the Treasury of the United States.[[299]]
The discussion which ensued brought out an expression of views relative to the position of the seceded States under the Federal Government. Stevens in the course of his remarks said: “I did say, sir, that I find no warrant in the Constitution for the admission, under the Constitution, of West Virginia. I do not know whether the gentleman from Kentucky voted for that bill or not.” Mr. Dunlap, the member referred to, stated that he had voted against the bill, because he deemed it unconstitutional. After this explanation the Pennsylvania leader proceeded as follows:
Then the gentleman voted against it upon the same opinion I expressed, that it was unconstitutional. But I went further and voted for it because I did not believe that the Constitution embraced a State now in arms against the Government of this Union and I hold that doctrine now. It was not said upon the spur of the occasion. It is a deliberate opinion, formed upon a careful examination of the law of the United States and the laws of nations.
Though it may be out of place just now, I will give one or two reasons for my opinion. The establishment of our blockade admitted the Southern States, the Confederates, to be a belligerent power. Foreign nations have all admitted them as a belligerent power. Whenever that came to be admitted by us and by foreign nations, it placed the rebellious States precisely in the condition of an alien enemy with regard to duties and obligations. Now, I think there is nothing more plainly written in the law of nations than that whenever a war, which is admitted to be a national war, springs up between nation and nation, ally and ally, confederate and confederate, every obligation which previously existed between them, whether treaty, compact, contract, or anything else, is wholly abrogated, and from that moment the belligerents act toward each other, not according to any municipal obligations, not according to any compacts or treaties, but simply according to the laws of war. And I hold and maintain that with regard to all the Southern States in rebellion. I do not speak of Kentucky, but of those States which have gone out under an act of legislation or convention—the Constitution has no binding influence and no application.
In answer to a question by Representative Dunlap he stated further that the seceded States, in his opinion, were not members of the Union. “The ordinances of secession,” he added, “backed by the armed power which made them a belligerent nation, did take them, so far as present operations are concerned, from under the laws of the nation.” When asked how, as Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, he proposed to pass an appropriation to pay officers to collect revenue in States which did not belong to the Union, he said: