The next plan is that inaugurated by the President of the United States, in the proclamation of the 8th December (1863), called the amnesty proclamation. That proposes no guardianship of the United States over the reorganization of the governments, no law to prescribe who shall vote, no civil functionaries to see that the law is faithfully executed, no supervising authority to control and judge of the election. But if in any manner by the toleration of martial law, lately proclaimed the fundamental law, under the dictation of any military authority, or under the prescription of a provost marshal, something in the form of a government shall be presented, represented to rest on the votes of one tenth of the population, the President will recognize that, provided it does not contravene the proclamation of freedom and the laws of Congress; and to secure that an oath is exacted. There is no guaranty of law to watch over the organization of that government. It may be recognized by the military power, and not recognized by the civil power, so that it would have a doubtful existence, half civil and half military, neither a temporary government by law of Congress nor a State government, something as unknown to the Constitution as the rebel government that refuses to recognize it. The only prescription is that it shall not contravene the provisions of the proclamation. Sir, if that proclamation be valid, then we are relieved from all trouble on that score. But if that proclamation be not valid, then the oath to support it is without legal sanction, for the President can ask no man to bind himself by an oath to support an unfounded proclamation or an unconstitutional law even for a moment, still less after it shall have been declared void by the Supreme Court of the United States. * * *
By the bill we propose to preclude the judicial question by the solution of a political question. How so? By the paramount power of Congress to reorganize governments in those States, to impose such conditions as it thinks necessary to secure the permanence of republican government, to refuse to recognize any governments there which do not prohibit slavery forever. Ay, gentlemen, take the responsibility to say in the face of those who clamor for the speedy recognition of governments tolerating slavery, that the safety of the people of the United States is the supreme law; that their will is the supreme rule of law, and that we are authorized to pronounce their will on this subject. Take the responsibility to say that we will revise the judgments of our ancestors; that we have experience written in blood which they had not; that we find now what they darkly doubted, that slavery is really, radically inconsistent with the permanence of republican governments; and that being charged by the supreme law of the land on our conscience and judgment to guarantee, that is to continue, maintain and enforce, if it exist, to institute and restore, when overthrown, republican government throughout the broad limits of the republic, we will weed out every element of their policy which we think incompatible with its permanence and endurance. The purpose of the bill is to preclude the judicial question of the validity and effect of the President's proclamation by the decision of the political authority in reorganizing the State governments. It makes the rule of decision the provisions of the State constitution, which, when recognized by Congress, can be questioned in no court; and it adds to the authority of the proclamation the sanction of Congress. If gentlemen say that the Constitution does not bear that construction, we will go before the people of the United States on that question, and by their judgment we will abide.
GEORGE H. PENDLETON,
OF OHIO. (BORN 1825, DIED 1889.)
ON RECONSTRUCTION; THE DEMOCRATIC THEORY; HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MAY 4, 1864.
The gentleman [Mr. H. W. Davis] maintains two propositions, which lie at the very basis of his views on this subject. He has explained them to the House, and enforced them on other occasions. He maintains that, by reason of their secession, the seceded States and their citizens "have not ceased to be citizens and States of the United States, though incapable of exercising political privileges under the Constitution, but that Congress is charged with a high political power by the Constitution to guarantee republican government in the States, and that this is the proper time and the proper mode of exercising it." This act of revolution on the part of the seceding States has evoked the most extraordinary theories upon the relations of the States to the Federal Government. This theory of the gentleman is one of them.
The ratification of the Constitution by Virginia established the relation between herself and the Federal Government; it created the link between her and all the States; it announced her assumption of the duties, her title to the rights, of the confederating States; it proclaimed her interest in, her power over, her obedience to, the common agent of all the States. If Virginia had never ordained that ratification, she would have been an independent State; the Constitution would have been as perfect and the union between the ratifying States would have been as complete as they now are. Virginia repeals that ordinance, annuls that bond of union, breaks that link of confederation. She repeals but a single law, repeals it by the action of a sovereign convention, leaves her constitution, her laws, her political and social polity untouched. And the gentleman from Maryland tells us that the effect of this repeal is not to destroy the vigor of that law, but to subvert the State government, and to render the citizens "incapable of exercising political privileges"; that the Union remains, but that one party to it has thereby lost its corporate existence, and the other has advanced to the control and government of it.
Sir, this cannot be. Gentlemen must not palter in a double sense. These acts of secession are either valid or invalid. If they are valid, they separated the State from the Union. If they are invalid, they are void; they have no effect; the State officers who act upon them are rebels to the Federal Government; the States are not destroyed; their constitutions are not abrogated; their officers are committing illegal acts, for which they are liable to punishment; the States have never left the Union, but, as soon as their officers shall perform their duties or other officers shall assume their places, will again perform the duties imposed, and enjoy the privileges conferred, by the Federal compact, and this not by virtue of a new ratification of the Constitution, nor a new admission by the Federal Government, but by virtue of the original ratification, and the constant, uninterrupted maintenance of position in the Federal Union since that date.
Acts of secession are not invalid to destroy the Union, and valid to destroy the State governments and the political privileges of their citizens. We have heard much of the twofold relations which citizens of the seceded States may hold to the Federal Government—that they may be at once belligerents and rebellious citizens. I believe there are some judicial decisions to that effect. Sir, it is impossible. The Federal Government may possibly have the right to elect in which relation it will deal with them; it cannot deal at one and the same time in inconsistent relations. Belligerents, being captured, are entitled to be treated as prisoners of war; rebellious citizens are liable to be hanged. The private property of belligerents, according to the rules of modern war, shall not be taken without compensation; the property of rebellious citizens is liable to confiscation. Belligerents are not amenable to the local criminal law, nor to the jurisdiction of the courts which administer it; rebellious citizens are, and the officers are bound to enforce the law and exact the penalty of its infraction. The seceded States are either in the Union or out of it. If in the Union, their constitutions are untouched, their State governments are maintained, their citizens are entitled to all political rights, except so far as they may be deprived of them by the criminal law which they have infracted.