Are by the laws of Venice confiscate
Unto the State of Venice.”
Such, Sir, is the extent of powers which may be exercised by Congress. Of course, it is for Congress to determine the degree of severity or lenity it will adopt. In claiming these powers to the full extent, I yield to no Senator in that spirit of clemency which, next to justice, is the grace and ornament of success.
Mr. President, these are the principles on which we must act. Announcing them and reducing them to practice, Congress will enlarge its accumulating claims to public gratitude.
The present Congress has already done much beyond any other Congress in our history. Measures, which for long years seemed attainable only to the most sanguine hope, have triumphed. Emancipation in the National Capital; freedom in all the National Territories; the offer of ransom to help emancipation in the States; the recognition of Hayti and Liberia; the treaty with Great Britain for the suppression of the slave-trade; the prohibition of the return of fugitive slaves by military officers; homesteads for actual settlers on the public lands; a Pacific railroad; endowments of agricultural colleges out of the public lands: such are some of the achievements by which the present Congress is already historic. There have been victories of war, won on hard-fought fields, but none comparable to the victories of peace. Besides these measures of unmixed beneficence, the present Congress has created an immense army and a considerable navy, and has provided the means for all our gigantic expenditures by a tax, which in itself is an epoch.
Thus, in the prosecution of the war, Congress has exercised two great powers,—first, to raise armies, and, secondly, to tax. Both bear directly upon loyal fellow-citizens everywhere throughout the country. Sons, brothers, and husbands are taken from happy homes and from the concerns of business, leaving vacant places, never, perhaps, to be filled again, and hurried away to wage a fearful war. But beyond this unequalled draft upon the loyal men of the country, summoning them to the hazards of battle, there is another unequalled draft upon the loyal property of the country, presenting a combined draft without precedent upon men and upon property. If you would find a parallel to the armies raised, you must go back to the forces marshalled under Napoleon in the indulgence of unbridled ambition. If you would find a parallel to the tax, you must go further back, to that early day of which the Gospel, in its simple narrative, speaks: “And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.” A similar decree is about to go out from you,—not, indeed, to tax all the world, but to tax a large and generous people: vast, it may be, even for the world. There have been taxes here before; and in other countries there have been taxes as enormous: but there has been no such tax here before; and in no other country has any such tax been levied at once, without the preparation and education of long-continued taxation.
Confiscation and liberation are other War Powers of Congress, incident to the general grant of such powers, which it remains for us to employ. So important are they, that without them I fear all the rest will be in vain. Yes, Sir, in vain do we gather mighty armies, and in vain do we tax our people, unless we are ready to grasp these other means, through which the war can be carried to the homes of the Rebellion: I mean especially the criminal homes of the authors and leaders of all this wickedness. By the confiscation of property, the large Rebel estates, where treason laid its eggs, will be broken up, while by the liberation of slaves the Rebels will be deprived of an invaluable ally, whether in labor or in battle. But I confess frankly that I look with more hope and confidence to liberation than to confiscation. To give freedom is nobler than to take property, and on this occasion it cannot fail to be more efficacious, for in this way the rear-guard of the Rebellion will be changed into the advance-guard of the Union. There is in confiscation, unless when directed against the criminal authors of the Rebellion, a harshness inconsistent with that mercy which it is always a sacred duty to cultivate, and which should be manifest in proportion to our triumphs, “mightiest in the mightiest.” But liberation is not harsh, and it is certain, if properly conducted, to carry with it the smiles of a benignant Providence.