Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

When the message reached the House it was referred to the Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union. Four days later Mr. Roscoe Conkling moved to suspend the rules in order to bring the resolution before the House "in the exact form in which the President had recommended it." The motion prevailed by 86 to 35. Francis P. Blair of Missouri and the representatives from West Virginia were the only Border State men who voted to suspend the rules. Mr. Conkling thought an immediate vote might be taken because he presumed "every member had made up his mind on the question involved." But the Kentucky delegation desired time for consultation. They concluded to oppose the resolution. Mr. Crittenden, speaking the sentiments of all, asked, "Why do you exact of Kentucky more than she has already done to show her loyalty? Has she not parted with all her former allies, with all her natural kindred in other States? Why should it be asked that she should now surrender up her domestic institutions?" Against the protest of Kentucky the resolution was passed, such radical abolitionists as Owen Lovejoy warmly supporting the proposition to pay for slaves out of the Treasury of the United States. Mr. Henderson of Missouri and Mr. Willey of West Virginia were the only Border State senators who saw the vast advantage to be secured to their own constituents by the passage of the measure. They supported it ably and heartily. It was earnestly opposed by the senators from Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. Mr. Carlile of West Virginia was the only senator in nominal sympathy with the Administration who voted against it. The hostility to the President's policy by senators from the Border slave States was so fixed as to prevent even a free discussion of the measure, and it was therefore remanded to a future day for consideration.

CONFISCATION OF REBEL PROPERTY.

A still more aggressive movement against slavery was made by Congress before the close of this eventful session. On the day that Congress convened, in the preceding December, Mr. Trumbull gave notice of his intention to introduce a bill "for the confiscation of the property of rebels, and giving freedom to the persons they hold in slavery." Three days later he formally introduced the bill, and made a lucid explanation of its provisions and its objects. He "disdained to press it upon the ground of a mere military power superior to the civil in time of war." "Necessity," said he, "is the plea of tyrants; and if our Constitution ceases to operate, the moment a person charged with its observance thinks there is a necessity to violate it, is of little value." So far from admitting that the superiority of the military over the civil power in time of war, Mr. Trumbull held that "under the Constitution the military is as much the subject of control by the civil power in war as in peace." He was for suppressing the rebellion "according to law, and in no other way;" and he warned his countrymen who stood "ready to tolerate almost any act done in good faith for the suppression of the rebellion, not to sanction usurpations of power which may hereafter become precedents for the destruction of constitutional liberty." Though the bill was introduced on the second day of December, 1861, it did not become a law until the 17th of July in the next year.

In the months intervening, it was elaborately debated, almost every senator taking part in the discussion. Garrett Davis of Kentucky, who had succeeded Mr. Breckinridge in the Senate, made a long speech against the bill, contending that Congress had no power to free any slaves. He wanted a bill of great severity against the rebel leaders: "to those that would repent" he would give "immunity, peace, and protection; to the impenitent and incorrigible he would give the gallows, or exile and the forfeiture of their whole estate." Such a law as that, he said, his "own State of Kentucky desired. As Hamilcar brought his infant son Hannibal to the family altar, and made him swear eternal enmity to the Roman power, so I have sworn and will ever maintain eternal enmity to the principle of secession and all its adherents." It was seen throughout the debate that the bill under consideration was in large part provoked by the confiscation measures of the Confederate Congress, and Mr. Davis declared that "the debts due to the North, estimated at $200,000,000, seized, confiscated, and appropriated by the rebel government, shall be remunerated fully."

Mr. John B. Henderson of Missouri who, as a Union man of prominence and ability, had succeeded Trusten Polk in the Senate, opposed the bill because it would "cement the Southern mind against us and drive new armies of excited and deluded men from the Border States to espouse the cause of rebellion." He urged that "the Union sentiment of the South should be cultivated, and radical measures tending to destroy that sentiment should be dropped." Mr. Fessenden was conservative on this as on other questions, and insisted upon the reference of Mr. Trumbull's bill to a committee; which was the occasion of some little passage between himself and Mr. Trumbull, not without temper. Mr. Trumbull suggested that "the senator from Maine would not be likely to get any light from the deliberations of five men unless he were himself one of them." Retorting in the same spirit, but, as he said, good-naturedly, Mr. Fessenden said he should not "hope that any deliberation of anybody would enlighten the senator from Illinois."

Sustaining the extreme power of confiscation, Mr. Sumner desired "the Act to be especially leveled at the institution of Slavery." He recalled the saying of Charles XII. of Sweden, that the cannoneers were perfectly right in directing their shots at him, for the war would be at an instant end if they could kill him; whereas they would reap little from killing his principal officers. "There is," said the senator, "no shot in this war so effective as one against Slavery, which is king above all officers; nor is there better augury of complete success than the willingness at last to fire upon this wicked king." By this means, Mr. Sumner believed that we should "take from the rebellion its mainspring of activity and strength, stop its chief stores of provisions and supplies, remove a motive and temptation to prolonged resistance, and destroy forever the disturbing influence which, so long as it exists, will keep this land a volcano, ever ready to break forth anew." Mr. Sumner, Mr. Wade, and Mr. Chandler, the senators who were regarded as most radical, desired more stringent provisions than they could secure. The really able lawyers of the Senate, Mr. Fessenden and Judge Collamer, repressed the extreme measures which but for their interposition would have been enacted. As the bill was finally perfected, Mr. Chandler and his colleague Mr. Howard voted against it, as did also Mr. Browning of Illinois and the Border-State Senators Davis of Kentucky, Henderson of Missouri, and Carlile of Virginia. To the Michigan senators the bill was too weak; to the others it was too strong. Mr. Willey of Virginia was the only senator from a slave-holding State who voted on the radical side. With the exceptions noted, Republican senators all voted for the bill.

CONFISCATION OF REBEL PROPERTY.

A series of measures in the House relating to confiscation were under discussion while the Senate was considering the same subject. The House passed a more stringent bill than the Senate would accept, and the subject was finally sent to a committee of conference, which from the points of disagreement framed the measure that ultimately became a law. As in the Senate, the Border-State men opposed the measure, but were overborne by the popular opinion which nearly consolidated the Republican vote of the North in favor of it. It was however an undoubted weakness, morally and politically, that such men as Crittenden and Mallory of Kentucky, James S. Rollins of Missouri, and Francis Thomas and Edwin H. Webster of Maryland were recorded against it. The bill was passed in the House by a vote of 82 to 42. The conference report having somewhat strengthened the original measure passed by the Senate, Messrs. Howard and Chandler of Michigan gave it their support, but for the same reason Mr. Cowan of Pennsylvania and Mr. Willey of Virginia opposed it. The final vote was 27 in favor to 12 against it.

The Act, as it finally passed, affixed to the crime of treason the punishment of death, or, at the discretion of the court, imprisonment for not less than five years and a fine of not less than ten thousand dollars,—all the slaves, if any, to be declared free. "To insure the speedy termination of the present rebellion" it was made the duty of the President to cause the seizure of the estate and property, money, stocks, credits, and effects of the following classes of persons: First, all those hereafter acting as officers of the army or the navy of the rebels in arms against the government of the United States; second, of any person acting as President, Vice-President, member of Congress, judge of any court, cabinet officer, foreign minister, commissioner, or consul of the so-called Confederate States; third, of any person acting as governor of a State, member of a convention or Legislature, or judge of any court of any of the so-called Confederate States of America; fourth, of any person who having held an office of honor, trust, or profit in the United States shall hereafter hold an office in the so-called Confederate States; fifth, of any person hereafter holding any office or agency under the so-called Confederate States or under any of the several States of said Confederacy; sixth, of any person who owning property in any loyal State or Territory of the United States, or in the District of Columbia, shall hereafter assist and give aid and comfort to the rebellion. "And all sales, transfers, or conveyances of any such property shall be null and void; and it shall be a sufficient bar to any suit brought by such persons for the possession or use of such property, or any of it, to allege and prove that he is one of the persons described in this section."

In the provisions of the Act directly affecting slavery it was declared that "All slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the Government of the United States or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army, and all slaves captured from such persons, or deserted by them and coming under the control of the Government of the United States, and all slaves of such persons found or being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterward occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives, shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves." This provision had a very sweeping application. Even if the war had ended without a formal and effective system of emancipation, it is believed that this statute would have so operated as to render the slave system practically valueless. When the war closed it is probable that not less than one-half of all the slaves of the rebel States had come within the scope of this statute, and had therefore been declared legally free by the legislative power of the United States.