TUESDAY, MAY 6, 1862.

NEW SERIES.....No. 121.

in for? Why is such a provision put in at all? When you undertake to confiscate enemy's prop

Mr. WADE. Will the gentleman allow me? I suppose we could have made a law last week that unless New Orleans surrendered it should be burnt, as well as there is power to kill the inhabitants if they do not surrender.

Mr. COLLAMER. The gentleman and myself differ. I think that the judgment of the question when the military necessity arises is to be left to the discretion of the executive power, who has in his hands the direction of the Army. Whether it is necessary to burn a city, whether it is necessary to desolate a country, whether it is necessary to kill people who are not in arms, are not legislative questions.

Mr. WADE. I do not like to interrupt the Senator unless he is willing that I should do

Mr. COLLAMER. I am always willing to be interrupted when it is done in a good spirit.

Mr. WADE. I never do it in any other spirit. I ask, in view of what the Senator now says, why was the sixth section of his bill put in?

I do not want

to repeat what I have already said; but when questions are asked, I may be compelled to do it in some degree. I have stated that our legislation should be consecutive and in certain progress, rising from step to step as the necessities of the occasion may require. I have endeavored to frame my bill upon that principle. I have attempted to explain it as being framed upon that principle, and why and how in each respect. I think the subject was capable of it, and I think I have given it consecutive explanation. I have supposed that after all the offers we could make, after all the inducements we could reasonably present to these people, some of them might, by possibility, be found to be persistently obstinate, and then there might be this exercise of executive military power I will not undertake to limit in an extreme case. the measure of that, except that it must be according to the nature of the necessity. I have contemplated that there might come an extreme case where in a particular section the Executive might find, after all experiments, that he could not succeed in reducing the people to obedience and in putting our laws in force and suppressing the rebellion but by declaring that the slaves in that section should be freed. Whether such a necessity would ever come, I must leave to the ExecuLive to say; but I was willing, in framing the bill, to recognize the existence of such a possible necessity. I desire not to create that power in the Executive, but, if such a contingency arises, in some measure to recognize its existence and limit and direct its exercise. Hence the sixth section is so framed that if, after full trial, the Executive finds that such a necessity has come, he shall issue his proclamation, still leaving the exercise of the power as some means of reconciliation, he shall state in the proclamation that after a certain day, if they then continue in arms against the United States, their slaves shall be free. I meant to have the power exercised in such a way as might, after ail, induce these people to submit, to have it used as a means of reconciliation and settlement. I desire by the section merely to qualify the mode of the exercise of this extreme power. That answers the question of the Senator from Ohio as to why I put the section in the bill. Now it is proposed by the Senator from Massachusetts that the section shall be entirely changed. I wish the Clerk to read-and if it cannot come in in order in any other way, I desire to have it read as part of my 121

ment.

Mr. President, I cannot but remark another thing, though it may not strike every mind as remarkable in all the provisions presented to us. In all these confiscation measures, including the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts, there is a certain involuntary but at the same time very pregnant respect paid to a particular provision of our Constitution that has settled down and worn into the habit of the mind that no man can get rid of it. All of these propositions say that this confiscation, this emancipation, shall take place in regard to the property and slaves of persons who shall that means hereafter-be guilty of acts of rebellion. What do gentlemen put that

erty of enemies who shall hereafter fight you shall
be prize. You simply declare enemy's property
prize, and confiscate it-the property of those who
have been your enemies, who are your enemies.
If gentlemen will look at confiscation bills, such
as are reported to us as having been passed by
the colonies at the time of the revolutionary war,
they will find that they were of that character. An
honorable Senator showed me a specimen of that
kind the other day; it was the Georgia act of con-
fiscation, and it went on to enact that A, B, C, and
D, naming them over, John Stiles, John Doe, Rich-
ard Roe, putting down one hundred or one hundred
and fifty, having been guilty of treason, their prop-
erty is hereby confiscated. That is confiscation
out and out. Why do we not have such acts pre-
sented here? If we have the power of confisca-
tion which gentlemen say nations have so fre-
quently exercised, pray why is it not proposed to
exercise it? Why not come right out with it? Why
is it not proposed in relation to all who have been
engaged in the rebellion? The honorable Senator
from Ohio has said upon the floor two or three
times over to-day that he is for confiscating the
property of all rebels. Has there been any such
bill here? Has anybody presented a bill to con-
fiscate the property of all who have been engaged
in rebellion? No. Why have we not such a bill
from those who claim this high national preroga-
tive and right?

Mr. KING. I offered an amendment making
the confiscation applicable to all who have been
engaged in the rebellion.

Mr. COLLAMER. And that was rejected.
Mr. KING. A majority of the Senate did not
vote for it.

Mr. COLLAMER. I give the honorable Sen-
ator some credit for offering it. That was con-
fiscation, or at least looked like it. The amend-
ment of the Senator from Massachusetts applies
only to the slaves of persons who shall be here-
after guilty. So it is with all the propositions.
Why is this? It is the result of our early educa-
tion, which we cannot get rid of; it springs from
the sentiment that you cannot pass ex post facto
I think it is a very
laws. That is the reason.
involuntary respect paid to that principle of the
Constitution; but it is pregnant, and it is paid.

The honorable Senator from Massachusetts,
and the honorable Senator from Ohio, seem never
to have understood the explanation which I gave
before, and I do not know that they ever will.
stand it. The honorable Senator from Massachu-
Perhaps it is because they do not want to under-
setts especially, in offering his amendment and in
speaking upon it yesterday, seemed to be set upon
the idea-he entertains it strongly, and he ex-
presses it strongly, as belongs to him-that the
existence of slavery and the existence of this
country under the General Government are in-
compatible. I shall not misrepresent him; I may
have misunderstood him; but if I did understand
him, that is his belief. He thinks slavery is the
origin of all the difficulty, and that the trouble
in with this amendment to effect-what? That
will continue as long as it exists. And he comes
purpose, of course. If it is adopted, and can have
effect, and is constitutional, it can have no effect
at all except upon those who shall hereafter be
engaged in the rebellion. It will not reach the
slaves of the fourteen thousand prisoners taken in
arms, whom we now have in captivity. They
cannot hereafter be engaged in the rebellion; we
do not mean that they shall be; and hence they
are to forfeit nothing; their slaves are not reached
by this amendment. The slaves of those whom
we have taken prisoners and put on parole not to
fight against us in this war, will not be reached.
The slaves of all those taken at Fort Henry, at
Island No. 10, of General Buckner, and those
captured at Donelson, and of all the men who were
captured in North Carolina and put on their pa-
role-the slaves of all whom we have taken,
whether they are now prisoners or are on parole,

1862.

the Senator from Massachusetts who I believe to
be a frank, a candid, and an honest man, although
governed by considerations that do not govern me,
when Jefferson Davis, when Iverson, when Wig-
fall, and those men laid out the Union in state, who
was it that rose and indignantly uttered a word of
condemnation in reference to their sentiments?
Was it the representatives from Massachusetts, or
was it the representatives from the border States?
One of the humblest, one of the youngest members
upon this floor I say to you and I say to the
country that on the day that Mr. Buchanan sent his
message to the Senate, when those gentlemen pro-
claimed themselves in favor of a dissolution of the
Union, at the heel of the day's session getting the
floor, I proclaimed that my noble State, little and
humble as she was, was the first to give her pledge
to this Union, and under any and all circumstances
she would be the last to abandon it. The position
that I took then I maintain now. But, sir, your
legislation is driving from you-bear that in mind
-the warmest friends you ever had. Carry out
your policy of emancipation, undertake by a sim-
ple act to free the slaves throughout this country,
and what will you do?

Mr. FOSTER. Will the Senator from Dela-
ware pardon me one moment for a question? I
can assure him that he does great injustice to the
feeling on this side of the Chamber, in supposing
that there is any hostility to the border States.
would ask him in that connection-not to allude
of course to the proceedings of the other House,
for that is not parliamentary-whether he has not
heard that a Representative of his own State, a
Representative of the whole State, voted for the
proposition which he condemns, when it was
before him as a legislator?

Mr. SAULSBURY. I thank the gentleman for the inquiry, because it gives me occasion to express my views on a matter which I otherwise should not have touched. When I speak to the honorable Senator from Connecticut, I speak to a gentleman for whom I have the most profound respect, a gentleman in whose patriotism and judgment and abilities and honesty of heart I have great confidence. But, sir, I still say that our voice has been unheeded, our counsel has been spurned; you have dared by your legislation to ignore the counsels of the Senator whose vacant seat is before me-vacant not from choice but from indisposition-the seat of a man who for twenty-five years has reflected honor upon his country in its council chambers. I refer to Mr. PEARCE, of Maryland.

Gentlemen, you have done all this, and you now propose to pass this bill. In boyhood, around the knee of my father, I learned to revere your Constitution and your Union. I have never felt any other sentiment than that of respect and reverence for the Constitution and the Union, but I tell you honestly that if you pass this bill you sound the death knell of the American Union.

The honorable Senator from Connecticut says that the Representative from my own State in the House of Representatives voted for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and for the resolution relative to emancipation in the border States.

Mr. FOSTER. I meant not to make the assertion, but to ask the question whether that was the fact.

Mr. SAULSBURY. It is so, sir. I do not mean to reflect upon that gentleman; I do not mean to say one unkind word in regard to him. In our personal intercourse and private friendship, many acts have passed between us that I cherish, and I never intend in a political controversy to do aught or say aught that is unkind personally. But I take leave to say that any man-I do not assert that he is a member of the House of Representatives-is mistaken who presumes to declare that the people of the State of Delaware approve your policy of the emancipation of the staves in this District, and the President's recominendation offering us aid if we initiate emancipation in the border States. Such a policy advocated by any man in Congress, or outside of Congress, will meet with the stern rebuke of the free voters of the State of Delaware. You have seen the last Republican you will ever see, you have seen the last representative of an opposition party to the Democracy of the country, either in that House or in this, from Delaware, after any such vote shall have been given by one who

I do not care in one aspect; the aspect most dear
to you the setting negroes free; but I do care
I have never, so help
in one aspect of this case.
me God, seen the day that I wanted either the
arms or the counsels of rebellion to prevail in this
country. I recollect in my schoolboy days read-
ing the Farewell Address of George Washington
where he warns against these things. Sir, it has
been the masterpiece of written advice, which I
have studied ever since. Two years ago, in my
place in the Senate of the United States, when
Mr. Davis, now the president of what they call
the southern confederacy at Richmond, offered
his resolutions, I raised a humble and ineffectual
voice against them-not that I dissented from the
principles, but simply because I wanted to keep
out sectional and party strife. In every vote I
have given and every act I have done, I have tried
to observe the same principle. I thought, sir, if
we could live a harmonious people united together,
we should not only be the greatest, but the hap-
piest people on earth. In my humble place here,

have tried by every vote I have given and every act I have done, to preserve the unity of our Government, that unity being based upon the Constitution which our fathers made. There are other gentlemen here who have done the same thing; yet they have been suspected, and I have been suspected, of being disloyal. By whom? Lettruth be spoken though the heavens fall. By whom? By men who, from 1820 to this present hour, have been agitating the slavery question. I heard the Senator from Massachusetts say yesterday that slavery was the cause of the rebellion, and while slavery existed, the sentiment was, I suppose, that treason must exist. In his impassioned declamation against what he considers the favorite institution of the South, he could not find aught of condemnation except as against slavery.

Mr. President, when I was a boy, among the first things that I read in the proceedings of Congress were the utterances of your [Mr. HALE in the chair] potential voice. And for what? Not for the extension of slavery, for then nobody proposed to extend it; but you were opposing the extension of slavery and the existence of slavery when nobody proposed to extend it, and nobody proposed to do aught except to observe the constitutional guarantees which our fathers made in reference to the subject of slavery.

Again, sir, when the proposition was made to annex Texas, who was it that said a word upon the subject of slavery? Did the friends of slavery ask that slavery should be carried into Texas? No, sir; but the proposition was made to exclude it from Texas. And if I could see my friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. WILMOT] in his seat, I should like to say a word to him. He expatiated a little on the barbarities of slavery, and its being the I think one of the first politcause of this war. ical speeches that I ever attempted before my people in a humble way was upon something that was called the "Wilmot proviso." What was the "Wilmot proviso?" Was it a proposition to extend slavery into the Territories? No, sir. When nobody asked to carry slavery into the Territories, it was a proposition by the same honorable Senator to exclude it, and to exclude it from territory into which it never could be carried. Why was the proposition made? For political agitation; for the success of party; for the triumph of party, and nothing else.

Again, gentlemen, let me tell you that during the present session of Congress I have sat here, I have listened very frequently, I have listened most patiently, although I have felt a little sensitive upon the subject, and I have heard gentlemen of the dominant party denounce every man that voted for John C. Breckinridge as a disloyal man. I am one of those men who think that a gentleman will be a gentleman under all circumstances, that personalities ought always to be avoided. I never indulge in them if I know myself; I cerBut they say that tainly never wish to do so. every man who voted for John C. Breckinridge is a disloyal man, and they wrap the American flag around their holy persons because they voted for Abraham Lincoln, and thank God that they are not as other men are, or even as these poor rebels who voted for John C. Breckinridge! I should know how to answer any such remark as that if it were made to me personally. I do not take personal offense at it simply for the reason that it is not addressed to me personally. Whenever

it is, I shall have but one reply to make-that man either lies or is without the responsibility of a man.

But, sir, let me tell you what you and your party have done in voting for Abraham Lincoln. You have laid down a platform aggressive upon the Constitution of your country. You have avowed principles contrary to the fundamental law of the land; you still advocate them. I do not say you are dishonest in advocating them. 1 give you credit for sincerity. We have met them, and warred against them just as honestly as you have combated for them. I think that your arguments, your declarations, your assertions, as to what you meant to do if you got the reins of power, have done more to dissolve this Union than anything else. The Senator from Vermont says, let us tell the truth. Let us tell it, sir. You have given Jefferson Davis and his men the only capital they had. They proclaimed that if you got into power you meant to do certain things. You denied it. Upon your accession to power, contrary to my honest judgment, contrary to my wish, they retired from this Chamber, they left your halls of legislation, and they undertook to set up a miserable flag, upon which were the bars and stripes, instead of the stars and stripes.

Mr. President, let men say what they please, let them impute what they please, I never intend to live under the bars and stripes. I intend to live either under the stars and stripes or under some foreign flag. I opposed them then. I was denounced by some of them as a very good southern abolitionist. In council I warred against them, when I was invited to their council. Against their action I have uniformly warred, and I intend to war; but, sir, I ask you, do not dissipate the dreams of my childhood; do not tell ine that the lesson I learned around the patriotic hearthstone is a delusion and a lie; do not tell me that when I heard my father and my kinsfolks talk of this as the greatest, the freest, and the happiest nation on earth, they were mistaken. Sir, by your legislation you are teaching every man in the border States to think that you are prosecuting the war, not for what they cherish and for what they can honestly fight this battle, the preservation of the Union and the Constitution of the country, but for another object-universal emancipation; for which, if you are honest men, you cannot prosecute it a single hour or a single day justly, but must bring down upon your heads not only the anathemas of the present, but the execration of the future.

Here is my friend from Kentucky, [Mr. DAVIS,] who differs very widely from me, so far as Democracy is concerned; but I believe he has a common purpose at heart with me-the integrity of the Union and the preservation of the Constitution. Do not tell us that you deluded and deceived us in the promises you made when you declared that you would not interfere with our domestic institutions, that you meant only this war for the preservation of the Union and the Constitution. Fight the battles that you are fighting for the preservation of the Union formed by our fathers, upon the only proper basis of a Union of free men, of equal States, for the perpetuation of the Constitution which our fathers formed, and we will go as far as he who goes furthest; but tell us that, by some insidious trick, by some legislative device, you mean to render it an occasion to destroy the freedom of the legislation and the independence of the States, that you mean to assume to yourselves what your fathers and ours never meant you to have-the right to regulate our domestic institutions; and while we will never raise a hand against the old flag, even though it be borne by what we consider disunion hands in the North, we can only stand by and look on.

Mr. WILSON, of Massachusetts. I hope the vote will be taken on my motion to proceed to the consideration of executive business. It is very important to have a brief executive session. Mr. TRUMBULL. Before that motion is put, I desire to present, with a view to have it printed, what I will offer as a substitute for the first section of the original bill as it is now pending. The original bill was amended, on the motion of the Senator from Ohio, [Mr. SHERMAN,] by limiting the confiscation to classes of persons. That amendment has not been printed in the bill, and I think the language of it is a little awkward. There have been a great many criticisms on the first section of the bill. Gentleman have thought proper

to understand it differently from what I intended; and in order to make it more clear, not alter its legal effect, as it was intended by me at any rate, at the proper time I will offer what I now present as a substitute for the first section; making it, I trust, more clear to some of those gentlemen who have made objections to it, which I think it is not obnoxious to. I simply ask that this amendment may be printed.

The proposed amendment was received informally, and ordered to be printed.

Mr. ANTHONY. I hope the other pending amendment will also be printed at the same time. The PRESIDING OFFICER. To what amendment does the Senator refer?

Mr. ANTHONY. The amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts. I move that it be printed.

The motion was agreed to.

Mr. CHANDLER. I ask the consent of the Senate to take up a bill reported this morning from the Committee on Commerce. Since it was reported, I have received a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, which I will send to the desk, and ask to have read.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Massachusetts insist upon his motion? The motion of the Senator from Michigan is not in order. There is a bill before the Senate not disposed of.

Mr. TRUMBULL. Before passing from the printing question, I wish to state that the Senator from Vermont suggests to me that he would like to see the first section of this bill as it has been amended in print. I move that the bill as it has been amended be printed. Then Senators will see exactly how it stands at the present time. The motion was agreed to.

Mr. CHANDLER. I will state that the House of Representatives have passed to-day the identical bill to which I alluded, and it is very important that it should be acted on promptly. The Committee on Commerce recommend an amendment which I shall offer if the bill be taken up. I move now to take up the House bill to amend the act of July last, in relation to the collection of duties on imports.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion is not in order. There is a bill before the Senate at this moment.

Mr. WILSON, of Massachusetts. I can say to the Senator from Michigan, that I understand there will be objection to the bill alluded to by him. I must therefore insist on my motion.

Mr. CLARK. I desire to submit an amendment, which I shall propose to the substitute of the Senator from Vermont, and I move that it be printed.

The proposed amendment was received, and ordered to be printed.

Mr. WILSON, of Massachusetts. It is of very great importance that we have a brief executive session to-day. I therefore insist on the motion that the Senate proceed to the consideration of executive business.

The motion was agreed to; and after some time spent in executive session, the doors were reopened, and the Senate adjourned.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
FRIDAY, May 2, 1862.

The House met at twelve o'clock, m. Prayer by the Chaplain, Rev. THOMAS H. STOCKTON. The Journal of yesterday was read and approved.

DUTIES ON IMPORTS.

Mr. WASHBURNE. I ask unanimous consent to report from the Committee on Commerce a bill supplementary to an act approved the 13th of July, 1861, entitled "An act for the collection of duties on imports, and for other purposes. There was no objection; and the bill was received, and read a first and second time. Mr. WASHBURNE. It is important that this bill should be passed at once, as will be seen by the letter of the Secretary of the Treasury, which I send to the Clerk's desk to be read. The Clerk read, as follows:

Treasury DepARTMENT, April 30, 1862. SIR: The possession of New Orleans makes early action on the bill herewith transmitted highly important to the public interest. It is a copy, with some modifications, of the bill sent to the committee a few days since.

Mr. VERREE, from the Committee on Naval Affairs, reported a bill for the relief of Horace M. Heiskell, a paymaster in the United States Navy; which was read a first and second time, ordered to be engrossed, and read a third time; and being engrossed it was accordingly read the third time, and passed.

SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

Mr. ELY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to a privileged question. When the vote was taken in this House on the bill emancipating slaves in the District of Columbia, I was absent from my seat in consequence of illness. If I had been present I would have voted in the affirmative. I now record my vote in the affirmative.

S. L. PHELPS, ETC.

Mr. SEDGWICK, from the Committee on Naval Affairs, made adverse reports in the following cases; which were laid upon the table, and ordered to be printed:

Petition of S. L. Phelps, lieutenant United States Navy;

Petition of W. T. Smithson, assignee of W. B. Drafer, for compensation for services rendered the United States with the Japan expedition; and Petition of T. A. Craven, commander United States Navy, for compensation for extra services.

On motion of Mr. SEDGWICK, it was or dered that the Committee on Naval Affairs be discharged from the further consideration of the following cases, and that they be laid upon the table:

Resolution of the House in relation to the establishment of a navy-yard and naval depot at Cape Girardeau, Missouri;

A communication in relation to the signal service; and

Resolution of the House in reference to the necessity of repealing the eighth section of the act of Congress to further promote the efficiency of the Navy, approved December 21, 1861.

STEAM LINE FROM CALIFORNIA TO CHINA. On motion of Mr. SEDGWICK, it was ordered that the Committee on Naval Affairs be discharged from the further consideration of a memorial of the Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco, California, relative to the establishment of a steam line from that city to China; and that the same be referred to the Committee on Commerce.

COLONEL JOSEPH PADDOCK, ETC. Mr. FENTON, from the Committee of Claims, reported bills of the following titles; which were severally read a first and second time, referred to a Committee of the Whole House on the Private Calendar, and, with the accompanying reports, ordered to be printed:

A bill for the relief of Colonel Joseph Paddock;

and

A bill for the relief of the assistant surgeons, medical cadets, sisters of charity, and servants, sufferers by the burning of the Washington In firmary on the night of the 3d of November, 1861.