Besides the enunciation of this juridical truth, which, frankly adopted, must have put an end to Slavery legally and constitutionally in the Rebel States, the Resolutions further asserted the jurisdiction of Congress over these States, and the duty to establish republican government therein,—in other words, the plenary power and duty of Reconstruction. Although these were formally denied, yet the power was practically recognized and the duty was followed, but only after injurious delay and the conflict of debate.
The Resolutions were especially criticized, in the Senate and out of it, for what was termed the doctrine of “State Suicide,” and “the lapse of States into Territories.” They were described as proposing to reduce States into Territories. Naturally, the sentiment of State Rights was aroused.
SENATORS ADVERSE.
Mr. Willey, of Virginia, saw in them a scheme of “unconditional, immediate, and universal Emancipation”; and he added:—
“These consequences, in my judgment, involve the lives of thousands of my fellow-citizens, and the happiness of all the loyal people of all the border slaveholding States.”
Then referring to the people of the South, he said:—
“Especially will they point to the sweeping resolutions of the great apostle of Abolition, the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Sumner], which by one dash of the pen deprive every Southern man of his slaves.”
Then came the familiar parallel between Mr. Sumner and Jefferson Davis.
“Sir, a few weeks ago we expelled a Senator, because, on the 1st of March last, he wrote a letter to Jefferson Davis, commending to his regard a friend who had a valuable fire-arm to sell, and who visited the South mainly for the purpose of selling it. This was deemed evidence of disloyalty sufficient to warrant his ejection from the Senate. But what do we now see? What, for instance, is the proposition of the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Sumner]? It is, by one fell swoop of his pen, to blot ten or twelve States out of the Union forever to remit them back to a Territorial condition, and thus to involve our muniments of right, the titles to our estates, our franchises and municipal privileges, in a kind of hotch-pot, begetting and superinducing an inevitable confusion as inexplicable and dark as original Chaos.”[145]