“From the instant that your slaveholding States become the theatre of war, civil, servile, or foreign, from that instant the war powers of Congress extend to interference with the institution of Slavery in every way by which it can be interfered with,—from a claim of indemnity for slaves taken or destroyed, to the cession of the State burdened with slavery to a foreign power.”[158]
I give but an extract. Again, after other years, with added experience, we find this exalted citizen asserting the same War Power, and holding up to terrified Slave-Masters the prospect of Universal Emancipation.[159]
Meanwhile the question was discussed by friend and foe, being always in the blaze of the public press, when, on the 14th of April, 1842, our champion returned to it again, asserting the power of Congress with new vigor and detail. This was after the introduction of resolutions by Mr. Giddings, setting forth the relations of the National Government to Slavery, where it was declared without reservation that each of the several States composing this Union has full and exclusive jurisdiction over the subject of Slavery within its own territory.[160] The Ex-President, while accepting the other resolutions, was unwilling to vote for this complete surrender to the Slave States, and here again he was driven to find opportunity for speech on another question. It was on the Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation Bill, and the salaries of our foreign ministers, when, with masterly ability, in a speech of two days,[161] he reviewed our foreign relations, warning especially against war with England and Mexico; and then by natural transition depicted again the power of Congress in such emergency. These are his words:—
“It is a War Power. I say it is a War Power; and when your country is actually in war, whether it be a war of invasion or a war of insurrection, Congress has power to carry on the war, and must carry it on according to the Laws of War; and by the Laws of War an invaded country has all its laws and municipal institutions swept by the board, and Martial Law takes the place of them. This power in Congress has perhaps never been called into exercise under the present Constitution of the United States. But when the Laws of War are in force, what, I ask, is one of those laws? It is this: that, when a country is invaded, and two hostile armies are set in martial array, the commanders of both armies have power to emancipate all the slaves in the invaded territory.”[162]
Still further, he announces, in words precisely applicable to the present hour:—
“Nor is this a mere theoretic statement. The history of South America shows that the doctrine has been carried into practical execution within the last thirty years. Slavery was abolished in Colombia, first, by the Spanish General Murillo, and, secondly, by the American General Bolivar. It was abolished by virtue of a military command, given at the head of the army; and its abolition continues to be law to this day.”[163]
Condensing then the whole subject, and bringing it all into one final statement, he says:—
“I might furnish a thousand proofs to show that the pretensions of gentlemen to the sanctity of their municipal institutions, under a state of actual invasion and of actual war, whether servile, civil, or foreign, are wholly unfounded, and that the Laws of War do in all such cases take precedence. I lay this down as the Law of Nations. I say that the military authority takes, for the time, the place of all municipal institutions, and of Slavery among the rest; and that under that state of things, so far from its being true that the States where Slavery exists have the exclusive management of the subject, not only the President of the United States, but the commander of the army, has power to order the Universal Emancipation of the slaves.”[164] [Applause.]
His confidence in this principle was complete. As he uttered it, he said, addressing the Presiding Officer, “I have no more doubt of it than that you, Sir, occupy that chair”; and he called upon Slave-Masters to answer him, if they could, “not by indignation, not by passion and fury, but by sound and sober reasoning from the Laws of Nations and the Laws of War.” No attempt to answer him was ever made; but the wrath of Slavery was poured still more unsparingly upon the head of the venerable orator. Meanwhile his words have stood as a towering landmark and beacon-flame.