IX

SPEECH ON THE CONFISCATION BILL1

MR. PRESIDENT, the second section of the bill reported from the Judiciary Committee is an act of emancipation, giving freedom to the slaves of those who, during the present rebellion, shall take up arms against the United States, or in any manner give aid and comfort to said rebellion. The bill itself declares their emancipation without the intervention of court or commissioners, and provides that in any proceeding by the master to enforce his claim against the slave, he shall establish his loyalty before an order shall be made for the surrender of the slave. The bill also provides for the confiscation to the national Treasury of both the real and personal estate of rebels who shall, after the passage of this act, be engaged in the rebellion, or in giving it aid and comfort, and who are beyond the United States, or, if within the United States, are beyond the reach of Judicial process. The bill does not per se work a forfeiture, but forfeiture takes place after seizure and appropriation by the commissioners appointed to act within those States and districts where the rebellion makes the holding of courts impossible, and after condemnation by the courts, in districts where they can be held, of the property seized, upon proceedings in rem, as in prize cases, or cases of forfeiture arising under the revenue laws.

I will consider briefly of both features of the bill. The second section, that providing for the emancipation of the slaves of rebels, I sustain in the whole length and breadth of its provisions. While I shall claim for the Government full power over the subject of slavery, I would not at this time go beyond the provisions of this bill. I would to-day give freedom to the slaves of every traitor; and after that would confidently look for the early adoption of

1 Delivered in the Senate, April 30, 1862. Cong. Globe, Thirty-seventh Congress, 2nd session, pp. 1873-1876. See Chapter XXXVI, on "The Confiscation Bill."

the policy recommended by the President, gradually to work out the great result of universal emancipation.

Special guaranties are claimed for the protection of slavery. Exemption is demanded for it from the hazards and necessities of war. Greater security is attempted to be thrown around it than is accorded to any other interest or right. I deny the legality of this pretension in behalf of slavery. It has no constitutional basis. Its claims of peculiar sacredness, and for special protection, are an insult to the nation. Life and liberty are made secondary to the safety and preservation of slavery. The property of the nation is to be subjected to heavy contributions, the lives of tens of thousands of its citizens sacrificed, hundreds of thousands of widows and orphans cast upon the charity of friends for support, all that we possess, life and property, are at the disposal of the Government; slavery alone claims exemption, the cause of the rebellion, the parent of all the calamities that threaten and afflict us. This great revolt against the integrity and sovereignty of the nation has no other foundation than slavery. Democratic government is a perpetual danger to slavery. The government of an oligarchy is demanded as security for its perpetuity and power. Here is the cause of the rebellion with its immense sacrifices of life and treasure. Amidst the sacrifices of this hour, this universal wreck of interests, shall the slaveholding traitor grasp securely his human chattel? Not, sir, if my voice or vote can reach him.

We must rightly comprehend the unparalleled wickedness of slavery, and the desperate determination with which it makes war on the Government, or we shall fail to deal with it as our security and peace demand. For thirty years slaveholders have looked with fear and hatred on our free system of government. Universal suffrage and the wide diffusion and increase of knowledge were sources of constant dread. For years they have kept the peace only on the terms of their domination and our subjection. They have governed the country, shaped its foreign and domestic policy, controlled its legislation on all questions of interest to themselves, and administered, in their own hands or through northern men subservient to them, every high office of State. A more imperious oligarchy never ruled a government.

The freemen-the democracy of the nation-in the election of

Abraham Lincoln, vindicated their right to administer the Government, and in the first hour of victory were met by the armed rebellion of the slaveholders. Shall slavery overthrow this Government? The nation has the right of self-defense, of self-protection-the right to make secure its peace and safety, and to remove whatever stands in the way. Slavery, in the war it has provoked, perils the national existence. It is the immutable law of nature and of nations, that a State shall preserve itself, that it may destroy whatever enemy threatens its life.

Vattel, a writer of caution, and of high authority on national law, lays it down that

"A State has a right to everything that can secure it from threatened danger, and to keep at a distance whatever is capable of causing its ruin. A nation is obliged to preserve itself, and the law of nature gives it the right to everything without which it could not fulfill this obligation.

"The law of nations is originally no more than the law of nature applied to nations. We call that the necessary law of nations that consists in the application of the law of nature to nations. It is necessary because nations are absolutely obliged to observe it. The necessary law of nations, being founded on the nature of things, is immutable. Whence, as this law is immutable, and the obligations that arise from it necessary and indispensable, nations can neither make any changes in it by their conventions, dispense with it themselves, nor reciprocally with each other."

Again, Mr. Rawle, in his "View of the Constitution," in speaking of our duty to maintain the Union, says:

"In every respect, therefore, which this great subject presents, we feel the deepest impression of a sacred obligation to preserve the Union of our country; we feel our glory, our safety, and our happiness involved in it; we unite the interests of those who coldly calculate advantages with those who glow with what is little short of filial affection, and we must resist the attempt of our own citizens to destroy it with the same feelings that we should avert the dagger of the parricide."

Slavery is the parricide that now aims at the national life. We must bind the criminal in perpetual bonds, if we would secure to the nation safety and peace.

The right of a State to preserve itself is clearly set forth by Vattel; nay, it is obliged so to do by a necessary and paramount law. Every writer of authority on the law of nations agrees with Vattel touching the right of national self-defense. The law is consonant with reason and justice and the common sense of mankind, and needs no citation of authorities to support it.

The law being established, the only questions open for examination are, the nature of this Government, and the hostile character of the enemy by which it is assailed. If we are a league of independent States, each having the right to withdraw at pleasure, and for causes the sufficiency of which each may judge, then the confederate States are right in the independence they assume, and the war on our part is a war of subjugation, flagrant and unjust. Our right to carry on the war can only be defended on the ground that we are a nation, bound by the obligation to defend our national existence.

What enemy puts our safety in peril; assails with war our unity and life? All enlightened and impartial men will give the same answer. Slavery is that enemy-the deadly and persistent foe of the nation. Slavery has organized for the overthrow of the Government the greatest rebellion in history, and without cause, save its fear and hatred of republican institutions. The nation was prosperous and happy; life and property were secure; we enjoyed a freedom given to no other people, a prosperity full to overflowing. Every blessing and every right was ours. The Government was only felt in the protection it gave and in the blessings it conferred. The armed revolt of the slaveholders against a Government so just and beneficent is the most detestable crime on record. Slavery arms brother against brother, and imbrues the nation in fraternal blood. It offers alliances with foreign despots and consents to the establishment of monarchies on our continent. Does any Senator on this side of the Chamber doubt that slavery is the immediate cause of our troubles? If not, then I claim his support for such measures against slavery as shall make it powerless for future mischief. I demand indemnity for the past and security for the future. The nation must never

again pass under the yoke of the slave power. We must have no reconstruction reëstablishing the domination of slavery. We shall deserve, and will receive, the scorn and execration of the civilized world if we step back from the plain duty before us. We must give the country lasting peace; we must cripple forever the power of slavery, and enfranchise the nation from its insolent rule. Slavery has made and unmade, built up and torn down at pleasure. It has enforced upon the Government and country novel and unwarrantable constructions of the Constitution by threats of disunion and blood.

It is an element of constant disturbance and danger. Mr. Calhoun earlier saw and more clearly comprehended than his contemporaries the irreconcilable antagonism between freedom and slavery. Commodore Stewart is the witness that, as early as 1814, Mr. Calhoun became satisfied that the two systems of society and labor could not both stand under one Government; that slavery must go to the wall, or a dissolution of the Union was inevitable. He devoted his life in giving strength to slavery, and thus preparing for the conflict which he saw must surely come. What Mr. Calhoun saw, in 1814, is now the philosophy and fixed belief of the leaders of the South. This war on their part is for the perpetuity of slavery, and this can only be secured at the expense of individual and national freedom.

The Constitution is continually pushed forward in support of the inviolability of slavery. Sir, I deny that the Constitution contains any special guaranties in behalf of slavery. It provides for the surrender of persons owing labor or service escaping from one State into another to the person to whom such labor or service is due. This is as applicable to apprentices as to slaves; and, at the time the Constitution was framed, embraced a large number of emigrants known as redemptioners. No one ever claimed that property in the service of an apprentice was specially placed under national protection because of this provision. If, however, the Constitution were all that slavery claims for it in this respect, the paramount law of self-preservation is not the less obligatory on the nation. Whatever we deem necessary, in the exercise of an honest and sound discretion, as a means of preserving national existence, that we have the authority of reason and of law to do. This doctrine is clearly recognized in the late special message of