June 14, 1864 (3)

These suggestions in favor ofan amicable adjustment will not be likely to meet the approbation of the cabinets or their special adherents at Washington or Richmond. The first would peril the nation with its thirty million Anglo Saxons for the supposed benefit of three or four million African slaves; they would extirpate slavery at whatever cost or sacrifice of blood and treasure; they would brush Federal and State constitutions out of their way like cobwebs; they would overrun and subjugate the South and exterminate the people; they would encourage servile insurrection, and arm the slave against his master; they would make war on and starve non combatants women and children; they would devastate and desolate the land with fire and sword and make it a howling wilderness; confiscate real and personal property; place the negro as to civil and political rights on an equality with the whites; execute or banish the rebel leaders; exclude all others engaged in the rebellion from the rights of citizens; place the freed negroes under the control of the Secretary of War, to be worked and managed by Government overseers; keep the people in subjection by means of a standing army, and to rule and govern the country by civil and military officers appointed by the President. Now I submit whether a war prosecuted for such purposes and in such a manner can reasonably be expected to terminate short of extermination?

On the other hand, the rebel leaders and cabinet at Richmond would prosecute the war todigintegrate the Union, subvert the Constitution, and destroy the Government, under the metaphysical sophistry that a State has the constitutional right to secede from the Union. This subtle theory cannot be sustained. It is a reproach to the wisdom and sagacity of the patriotic statesmen who molded andfasluoned our organic law to suppose a State could at will secede and destroy the whole system. Again, they say they will continue to wage this war because a party is in power pledged to overthrow the institutions of their States. Suppose it be admitted. They aided in bringing about the result, and are therefore particepscriminis. Let them remember the schism they caused in the Democratic party at Charleston and Baltimore, and the encouragement they gave to Johnson, Dickinson, Butler, and others of their tools and allies, to defeat the election of the Democratic nominee and thereby aid the election of the puny m power; they should be quiescent at a result to which they contributed. If there is a sectional party in power hostile to their institutions they so willed it; they said they preferred Lincoln to Douglas, and got their choice; it is to be hoped they are satisfied, and will be satiated with ins Administration; I think the North is already. Now, while these two war parties would continue its prosecution for entirely dissimilar purposes, they concur in saying that there is no other alternative but to fight on. It cannot be possible we are m any such extremity. If the politicians had been out of the way the people would have settled our difficulties long ago. But unfortunately for the peace of the country, the political caldron in its effervescence had spawned to the surface a brood of political tricksters and fanatical demagogues; the scum rose to the top, and floated into positions of honorand trust; without capacity or patriotism to parry the threatened danger, they recklessly involved the country in civil war.

These wiseacres tell us that peace is a myth not to be thought of, that we must fight on, kill and slaughter, give up the last man and the lust dollar; that the country must meekly and silently submit to having our gallant young men, the flower and hope of the country, pitted against each other in deadly combat, and glory in tire slaughter. The greedy Moloch of sectionalism is not satiated, through dripping with the blood fresh from the hecatomb of hundreds of thousands of human sacrifices offered upon its crimsoned altars. And still a confiding people are told there is no other way, no alternative left but to fight on, and on, and on. How long, O God how long is this bleeding, dying people to be deceived and duped by political quacks and speculators in the suffering and life s blood of the nation? How Ion are the bulls and edicts emanating from Richmond and Washington to be potential to coerce the free people of this country to sacrifice thenlives at their behest? In the parlance of the sportsman they skillfully andadroitly" play into each other s hands for the overthrow of the constitutional rights and liberties of the people; there is a most singularly Marked coincidence in their ■views in relation to public policy. They agree that written constitutions and the solemn obligations of oaths have but little binding weight in time of war. The freedom of speech and the press has been stricken down. The people s writ of habeas corpus has been suspended, and its right denied to the citizen- The judicial ermine ■has been invaded, judges forcibly dragged from their courts and imprisoned for judicial decisions. The elective franchise has been abridged, and the voters driven from the polls at the point of the bayonet. Martial law has been declared over districts of country not in rebellion and the military placed above the civil authorities. Free citizens, not belonging to the military or naval service, have been arrested without process, tried, and sentenced by drum head courts martial without counsel or jury, and exiled or incarcerated in military bastiles. These gross and flagrant infractions upon the liberties and clearly defined constitutional rights of the people have been unblushingly perpetrated under the free institutions of the United States, in the middle of the nineteenth century, under the despotic plea of military necessity. O degenerate, subjugated sons of a glorious ancestry, whose cheek does not tinge and mantle with shame at the humiliating reflection?

Now, I submit to the House and the country whether the people had not better dispense with the services of officials who in the brief space of three years have reduced the country to its present humiliating condition. Power was temporarily placed in their hands to administer the Government, not to subvert it, or wrest from the people their liberties. They are the servants of the people to execute their will, not their masters to lord it over and oppress them; let them take due and timely notice and govern themselves accordingly. They contemplate, no doubt, by means of the purse and the sword and the vast patronage which they wield, to disregard the will of the people and perpetuate their power. If they succeed in establishing themselves m power by such means, the liberties of the country are irretrievably lost. It is time that the people were aroused to the magnitude and importance of the issues involved in the approaching contest.

For the purpose of rescuing the Government from their hands, preserving the Constitution and maintaining the Union and the liberties of the people, let us for the time being, if need be, ignore party names and alliances, and unite with Union loving conservative men everywhere, to preserve and transmit as a precious boon the legacy of free government. The honest, confiding masses should not be deceived or lulled into false security; the greedy swarms of Federal officers, contractors, and placemen, who are hoarding their ill gotten wealth at the expense of the toil and sweat of the laborer, will be active and unscrupulous. I fear they have selfish, ambitious, traitorous designs upon the liberties of the counBy rejecting all propositions looking to a peaceful adjustment they have involved the country in the most terrible, gigantic civil war the world has ever witnessed. The Douglas, Crittenden, Kellogg, and border State propositions were all rejected. The leading representative men of the South offered to accept the Crittenden compromise as a finality, if tendered in good faith by the party in power. When the peace congress was m session in this city, fearing that they might be thwarted in their cherished design of precipitating the country in civil war, they wrote and telegraphed to the Governors of the States," Send us stiff backed men or none;" "Ohio, Indiana, and Rhode Island are caving m, and there is some dangerof Illinois;" For God s sake come to the rescue and save the Republican party from rupture;" Without a little blood letting the country will not be worth a curse." Now, this shows most clearly that they were opposed to compromise, and were willing to involve the country in war to save the Republican party from" rupture."

As further evidence of their premeditated designs to have war, I submit the testimony of Judge Douglas. He said:

"The South would take my proposition If the Republican'; would agree to it." Many of tlie Republican leaders desire a dissolution of the Union, and urge war ad n means of accomplishing disunion." "We have now reached a point where a compromise on the basis of mutual concessions or disunion and war are inevitable. I prefer a fair and just compromise."

And again, on February 2, 1361 he said:

They are striving to bi eak up the Union under the pretense of unbounded devotion to it. They are struggling to overthrow the Constitution while professing undying attachment to it and a willingness to -make any sacrifice to maintain it. They are nymg to plunge the country into civil war as the burest moans of destroying the Union, upon the plea of enforcing the laws and protecting the public property. If they can defeat every kind of adjustment or compromise by which the points at issue may be satisfactorily settled, and keep up the Irritation so as to induce the border States to follow the cotton States, they will feel certain of the accomplishment of their ultimate design.

Nothing will gratify them so much or contribute so successfully to their succeed asthe secession of Tennessee and the border States. Every State that withdraws from the Union increases the relative power of northern abolitionists to defeat a satisfactory adjustment, and to bring on a war, which, sooner or later, must end in final separation and recognition of the independence of the two contending sections."

This, Mr. Chairman, is a true and faithful exposition of the animus of the party in power, drawn by a master hand; may it give them" the power to see themselves as others see them." They refused to permit the people to he heard upon the question of compromise, for fear they would decide in favor of peace and thereby thwart their cherished schemes of war and disunion. By reference to the Journals of the House of January 7 18G0 it will be seen thatMr. Clemens proposed to submit the Crittenden compromise to a vote of the people for adoption or rejection; (ace resolutions offered by him;) this proposition they rejected by a party vote, many of the honorable members over the way, including the honorable Speaker, voting against it. This refusal to permit the people to be heard on the question of peace or war shows a premeditated intention to precipitate the country in civil war. And since they have succeeded in inaugurating their treasonable machinations against the liberties of the country nothing so rouses the irrepressible ire of these disuniomsts per se as to mention phage; they dread it as the devil does holy water. With swaggering, blubbering gasconade they vociferate traitor, copperhead, disloyal. This stop tluef cry of criminals lacksthe meritof originality. They would divert attention and cover their tracks by charging upon others the foul and infamous treason under which their own seared and lacerated consciences are writhing. But the transparent trick, the gauzy texture will not conceal from the searching scrutiny and withering rebuke of the country the gross iniquity and dark perfidy of their crimes. The people, indignant at the imbecility and treachery of those charged with the administration of the Government, are being aroused to impending danger. The rumbling ground swell from the disabused masses is heard in the dim distance; its audible mutterings fall like the sound of a death knell upon the ears of the guilty plotters of treason. The" wolves in sheep s clothing" will be disrobed, and their naked deformity exposed to the indignant scrutiny of a deceived and outraged people, so that" they maybe known and read of all men." Theirday of reckoning is drawing near. In the midst of their public plunder, bloody carnival and bacchanalian revelings their hearts quake, knees tremble, and cheeks blanch as they read the handwriting on the wall, 44 Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting."

Mr. Speaker, the sad, humiliating spectacle is presented to the country of its liberties being crucified and put to an ignominious death in the house of its pretended friends. They insist on giving the last dollar and the last man, but exhibit prudential caution that their dollar is the last one taken, and they the last men to go. They do not want the southern States in the Union, consequently take care to prosecute the war in such a manner and for such purposes as to prevent their return; its continuance is their political capital stock, and they would procrastinate it as long as they can hold the offices, get fat contracts, and speculate in the blood and suffering of the country. When the war is stopped there will be 2 000 000 per day less tax for the people to pay; consequently, minus that amount to lavish among the fawning minions of power, the peculation, fraud, and plunder of the public Treasury would have to cease; the Mississippi river would be opened to navigation; the railroad monopolies could no longer extort from the farmer of the West half the value of his production for transportation to market. This war has been a godsend to monopolists, peculators, shoddy contractors, Government thieves, and public plunderers generally; they are amassing princely fortunes, rolling in wealth, reveling in their ill gotten gains; you may set them down for the war; they" will go to the last dollar and to the last man." These Shylocks wiilhold mortgages in the shape of Government bonds on the property and industry of the country; a bill of sale on the sweat and toil of honest labor for unborn generations.

Mr. Speaker, it is not marvelous that New England is for the war. By means of her railroad monopolies, fishing bounties, and high tarifFs she impoverishes the balance of the country, and its wealth flows into the lap of her pampered aristocracy; she, as a matter of course, favors a vigorous prosecution of the war. Did you ever know the universal Yankee nation to let up with their hands to the elbows in the pockets of the people? The history of this peculiar people furnishes no such example; they are still true to their nature and their instincts. Perhaps I should notice the oft repeated charge from the other side of the House that the Democratic party are hostile to the soldiers. INo aspersion could be more groundless or ungenerous. It is true they sought and advised peace rather than to have the country scourged with a devastating civil war; they would that this bitter cup might have passed, and the country not be compelled to drink it to its bitter dregs; but when their counsels were rejected and the conflict upon us there was no factious opposition interposed to the party in power trying their plan; money and men were voted without stint; Democrats vied with Republicans in filling the ranks until the first call of seventy five thousand has swelled to over two million, a full half from the Democratic party. Such is the case in my own State, which has always been ahead of all calls. It is true there is a deficit from the Republican districts; but they have been more than filled by the excess from ours, and in case of emergency they can easily" stamp flaming giants from the earth" to fill up their quotas.

When the tocsin of war was sounded the people rallied around the flag of the country under the assurance that it was necessary to preserve the Government, and that it was to be prosecuted to enforce the laws and suppress the rebellion, and not to interfere with or overthrow the institutions or independence of the States. I am frank to say I did not rely upon these assurances, but have no fault to find Willi those having more faith than myself who deemed it their duty to enter the service, and cheerfully award to them the meed of patriotic self sacrificing devotion to what they deemed the best interest of the country, and they are justly entitled to our respect, sympathy, and support; recognizingto its fullestextentthis duty and obligation, I have uniformly voted supplies, increase of pay, and pensions for our soldiers. But, sir, when and in what way have the party in power exhibited their kind regard for the welfare of our soldiers? Is it in the reckless and wanton sacrifice of their lives to the Moloch of abolition? Is it m their fanatical, radical measures which have obliterated the Union sentiment of the South and united their people against us? Is it by colonizing the North with the degraded Africans from the South, so that the soldier on returning home will have to work by his side, and compete with him for place and pay? la it by placing the corp d JSfriquc upon an equality with them in the ranks, and thereby humiliating their pride and wounding their honor? If their lovefor the soldier had been anything more than hollow hearted pretense why did they remain in session over five months without reporting: a bill to increase their pay? They knew that since our soldiers left home the expense of living had greatly increased; that their families had to pay double the ordinary price for the necessaries of life; that labor at home was commanding from a dollar and a quarter to three dollars per day. Why, then, should the soldier be expected to endure the hardships and dangers incident to war for less compensation than his services would command at home? These exclusive friends of the soldier have reduced his rations, and in their munificent generosity and fullness of heart have actually increased his pay ten cents per day, up, up to the prodigal sum of fifty three and a third cents a day. This lavish increase of ten cents will enable them, if judiciously expended, to purchase from one quarter to one third of a yard of calico or brown domestic to clothe their families at home, and as for such luxuries as tea and coffee, they are not to be thought of;" rye coffee is good enough if the negroes can be free."

Unfortunately for this side of the House, our estimable no party Speaker has failed, inadvertently no doubt, to assign us any such position on committeesas would enable us to exercise any controlling influence for the benefit of the soldier or the country. I believe the only chairman awarded us is that on mileage, over which my distinguished colleague, [Mr. Robinson,] honored with six years' congressional experience, presides. But thankful for small favors in our humble sphere, at the tail end of committees, we have done the best we could. Early in the session, at my instance, a resolution was adopted directing the Military Committee to inquire into the expediency of increasing the pay of our officers and soldiers, but their attention has been so exclusively engrossed in miscegenation projects for the benefitof "American citizens of African descent" that little time was left to devote to the secondary interests of mere white soldiers. Becoming impatient after waiting several months for a report, I offered another resolution instructing the committee to report a bill at an early day increasing the pay of officers and soldiers at least thirty three percent. This presented a dilemma; if it passed a bill would have to be reported; if they voted it down it would disclose to the soldiers and the country their hypocrisy. In their extremity they brought to the rescue the fertile resources and parliamentary skill of the distinguished member from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Stevens;] in a crisis he is their reliance to furnish brains. He arose and gravely announced a desire to debate the resolution; this, under the rules, passes it over without a vote; a complacent smile passes over their anxious countenances at the success of their tactician. The honorable Speaker has never yet been able to reach the resolution. When the Military Committee introduced their bill to reduce the rations and increase the soldier s pay ten cents per day, I appealed to the chairman to permit an amendment to be made inserting twenty dollars in lieu of sixteen dollars per month; this he peremptorily refused, but demanded, and the House sustained, the previous question, thereby cutting off all amendments and debate. Again, when the report of the committee of conference on the military bill was under discussion, I moved to recommit the bill with instructions to report it back with an increase of pay to the soldier of at least twenty dollars per month. This proposition, at the instance of a member of the committee, [Mr. Farnsworth,] was ruled by the Speaker to be out of order.

I submit, Mr. Speaker, the above facts that the country may determine who are the true friends of the soldier. They may well ask to be delivered from such friends.

Honorable members over the way tell us they have been doing a nice thing for the soldiers by the bill of this session in dividing and parceling out between them and the negroes the plantations of the South, and granting them homesteads by robbing other people of the fruits of their labor and converting them to their own use. I think they have greatly mistaken and underrated the character and pluck of our citizen soldiers if they suppose they entered the service for purposes of pillage and plunder; they are not homeless freebooters to be seduced from the paths of honor by" beauty and booty;" they left homes acquired by honest industry, and domestic associations more endearing and tempting than the steal yourself a home negro equality doctrine tendered by the party in "power. Hence I conclude that these loud mouthed professions of love for the soldier and the Union are off of the same piece, slack twisted badly wove, and not large enough to cover their nakedness. The patent truth is they are not for the Constitution or the Union, but, wishing to subvert them, oppose peace and urge war; they say that a little blood letting is healthful for the body politic that the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of her citizens; that there is no remission for sins but by the shedding of blood; that we must cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war; that all great nations have had civil wars, and the time has come for ours. Sir, in an evil hour these counsels prevailed. Still they hesitated to startle the country by fully showing their purposes. In ninety days, with seventy five thousand men, the job was to be completed and the breakfast spell over. We have now reached the fourth year of the war, and they modestly ask us to extend the time that they may continue to" peg away" for four years longer. Two millions of our young men, the hope and flower of the country, have gone into the service; two hundred and fifty thousand lives have been sacrificed; as many more with shattered and broken constitutions and with maimed and mutilated persons still linger in our midst, objects of the nation s bounty and sympathy. A fearful responsibility rests upon the guilty authors of this suffering and sacrifice of life. The full measure of just punishment would be too terrible. May neither their daily meditations nor nightly visions be haunted by sepulchral specters of departed spirits.

Thou canst not say I did it: never shake

Thy gory locks at mo."

Mr. Speaker, the life of the nation is in imminent peril; the agonizing throes and death rattle admonish us of approaching dissolution; but while there is life there is still hope. Asthe ship wrecked mariner seizes with dying hope to the last floating spar, so let the people rally around and cling to the Constitution as the sheet anchor of our hope. Their duties and responsibilities are fearfully great and cannot be ignored. They owe it to their sires, the wives of their bosoms, the innocent prattlers that dandle upon their knees, to unborn generations, and to their own manhood, to preserve free government and transmit constitutional liberty as the most invaluable legacy. The Federal Constitution with all its limitations and just balances must be maintained; the reserved rights of the States and the people protected; the union of the States must be preserved and perpetuated; the personal rights and liberties of the citizen must be upheld and defended; free speech, a free press, and a free ballot, cannot be surrendered by a free people; these inalienable, clearly defined expressly guarantied constitutional rights, invaluable to freemen, formidable only to tyrants, must be protected, maintained, and defended from any and every assault, from whatever source or under whatever pretext made, by every lawful means peaceably if they can, but forcibly if they must. To slavishly surrender their priceless liberties would show them to be craven hearted cowards unworthy to enjoy them. The State of Illinois has furnished from one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand of her brave sons to suppress treason in front, andcould, if necessary, duplicate the number, and still has left a Democratic reserve of one hundred and fifty thousand home guards of true, reliable men, who have never bowed the knee to Baal, able and willing, if it should become necessary, to protect and defend the constitutional rights and liberties of the people against any fire in the rear by home traitors.

One of the most humiliating reflections which forces itself upon the country is its barrenness of able statesmen. The national councils are filled, with but few exceptions, (which, of course, includes this Congress,) with men woefully dwarfed in intellect and patriotism, the scum that rises and floats to the surface during the simmering blubbering of the political caldron.

In view of this patent deficiency there was an aptness and pertinence in the supplication recently offered up with great unction and pathos by the Chaplain of the Senate, which is said to run as follows:" 0 Lord, give us more brains we beseech Thee; more brains, Lord, more brains. Thou knowest our destitution and need of more brains. The President should without delay, by proclamation, make the matter of "more brains" a special subject of prayer. Surprise has been manifested in some quarters at the House selectingas their spiritual teacher a Chaplain who repudiates the evangelical Trinity and denies the divinity of our Saviour, but bear in mind we live in a progressive age, By the new standard of orthodoxy supplications for war and negro equality supersede the gospel of peace; the elastic consciences of the party in power are not to be hampered by the obsolete old fogy doctrines of the old Constitution and the old Bible.

At a time like the present the utility or good taste of indulging in crimination and recrimination may be seriouslyquestioned. It can scarcely be sanctioned in the way of retaliation, but to refrain under such provocation would have subjected the meekness of Moses to a severe test.

Now, permit me to suggest that party and personal asperities be dropped, and we apply ourselves to the higher and nobler objects of saving the country. With this purpose in view, will honorable members over the way consent for the time being, at least, to abjure the partisan and assume the stature of statesmen? It requires an effort on your part to sever party ties and breast the dashing waves of fanaticism; there is more ignoble ease in floating with the rubbish in the current, and pandering to the passion and prejudice of the hour. You have distinguished precedents for breasting the tide, by resisting popular passion and sectional fanaticism. In 1850 our argus eyed statesmen descried in the dim distance a small dark spot, no larger than a man s hand, lowering over our political horizon, gathering in volume and blackness; they snuffed the dangerin the tainted breeze. Behold Kentucky s gifted orator and distinguished statesman as he leaves again the endearments of home and enters the arena of his former glory. For four decades his clarion voice had been the talismanic wand that stirred into quicker pulsations and thrilled the national heart; crowded, spell bound Senates hung in wonder upon his words, entranced and electrified by the magic inspiration of his burning eloquence. He had retired from the stormy turmoil of political strife to enjoy coveted quiet amid the ambrosial shades of his own beloved Ashland. At the call of an imperiled country his stooping form becomes erect, his dim eye brightens. He again enters the Senate; party spirit and strife is hushed into silence. By common consent he is awarded the distinction of chairman of the conference committee of thirteen, composed in equal proportions of the distinguished men of both parties. For months they labored, vying with each other to avert the gathering storm, and sustaining their venerable chairman.

Illinois favorite statesman, the lamented Douglas, exhibited in a remarkable degree the moral greatness and heroism to stem the tide and breast the dashing waves of fanaticism as its angry billows beat around the old ship of State, threatening to ingulf the hopes of the nation within itsyawning vortex. For his action in sustaining the committee he was denounced, persecuted, and vilified, but with the bitterest acrimony at his own home in Chicago; here the city council and clergy openly arrayed themselves against the measures of pacification adopted by Congress, and the popular frenzy was so great that he said he could travel through that part of the country by the light of his own burning effigies. Nor was Massachusetts' illustrious statesman exempt from the malignant obloquy of the viperous tongue for attempting to stay and roll back the flowing tide of political fanaticism engendered in the hot house ofabolitionism in his own State; when he returned to his constituents from the Congress m which he had taken so conspicuous a part m sustaining the compromise measures of 1850, his action was so obnoxious to the vitiated sectional sentiments that he could not have been elected ajustice of the peace in any township in Massachusetts; he sought to vindicate his course before his constituents, but they tried to stifle and suppress freedom of speech. The city authorities of Boston, to their shame and reproach be it spoken, refused to permit him to speak in Faneuil Hall; its doors were shut against the defender of the Constitution, the man who had done more than any other to give a name and character to New England. Oh, shame on the base ingratitude, the dark perfidy, the bitter malignity of sectional fanaticism I The great Webster never loomed up in such grand and godlike proportions; excluded from liberty s consecrated halls, the people assemble in Boston common, and there, beneath the azure arch and starry canopy of heaven, he bares his frosted locks and massive brow to the free rustling breezes; the pure water gushes from the smitten rock in terse Anglo Saxon words, that should be written in letters ofgold, appealing to the fanaticism of New England to learn to subdue their passions.

These truly great men could soar above passion and prejudice and sever the iron shackles of party. III 1852, through the national conventions of the two great political parties, the country ratified and indorsed the compromise measures of 1850 as a finality.

Mr. Chairman, may we not learn wisdom by the examples and experience of the past? I would implore honorable members to abjure party for the paramount interest of our common country, and respectfully commend to their favorable consideration these illustrious examples as eminently worthy of their noblest and mostexalted aspirations. Their names and memories will live green and fresh in the hearts of the people, revered and venerated by the friends of personal and constitutional liberty throughout the world, while the fomenters of civil war, the bloodthirsty Marats and Robespierres, like their prototypes, will be a reproach and hissing, a byword and stench in the nostrils of honest men.

This side of the House is powerless to give relief to our bleeding, dying country. Itsdestinies for weal or woe, with all its glorious memories of the past and precious hopes of the future, hang tremblingly in the balance in your hands. Will you save us our liberties, and preserve us our blood boughtinheritance This boon we demand at your hands; we demand it in behalf of thirty million free born Anglo Saxons whose throbbing hearts implore and wistful eyes are anxiously turned toward this capital. This you can still do. Will you do it? We do not expect you to relieve us from the burdens of the 3 000 000 000 of national debt created by this war; this is not in your power. You cannot expiate for nor breathe new life into the two hundred and fifty thousand brave men w antotily sacrificed, I fear, by your war policy. You cannot restore them to their stricken and disconsolate friends, nor fill the aching void that palls these bereft and desolate hearthstones. You cannot close the gaping wounds nor ease the piercing agony of a hundred thousand brave men languishing on the field and in the hospitals. You cannot bind up the broken heart nor stay the gushing tear of the inconsolable widow. You cannot meliorate the piteous condition, souihe the plaintive wail, nor hush the unbid sob of the moaning, heart stricken orphan. These things you cannot do. But you can yet give us back a free, independent judiciary, the writ of habeas corpus, a free ballot, free speech, and a free press. Give us back the old Constitution of our fathers, with all its sacred memories and cherished associations; though torn and rent and perverted as it has been, we love it still; strong arms will uphold and warm hearts cluster and nestle around it. Give us back as it was the old Union of our fathers, without a star erased or stricken from the bright galaxy of its effulgent constellation, with the old llagof our fathers with all its ample folds still floating proudly in triumph above us.

Mr. HOLMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am reluctant to occupy the attention of the House at this late moment, but I desire to present briefly my views on the pending question. This bill, having passed the Senate by a constitutional majority, only awaits the approval of this House. It proposes to introduce into the political contest of the present year a measure of great public concern. It presents the question, shall the Constitution of the United States be amended? In view, sir, of the present condition of the country, no graver question has ever challenged the attention of the American Congress. The merits of the amendment are of comparatively little moment. The more serious question is, shall the Constitution be amended at all.' Are the times propitious for the consideration of such a question? Is it a time to weaken in the public mind already in a state of revolution, the authority of established principles by innovation and change? I cannot butexpress my earnest regret that this new element of discord has been forced upon the country. Of all of the measuresof this disastrous Administration, each in its turn producing new calamities, this attempt to tamper with the Constitution threatens the most permanent injury. 1 speak, sir, without reference to the merits of tire amendment. If it were ever so wise in the abstract the presentcondition of the country would demand its postponement. The bitter experience of three years and a half of uninterrupted misfortune ought to have taught the Republican party the fallibility of their judgment, fatality of tnoiir policy j but the more fatal their measures the more reckless their experiments. What aseriesof promises and failures! The act of confiscation was to terrify the South and more than supply the expenses of the war. Yet it only impoverished the Treasury by hosts of new officers, and swelled the ranks of the rebel army.

The proclamation of the President emancipating the slaves alike of the loyal and disloyal in ten States of the South was to strike an irresistible blow. The promise was fulfilled, but the blow fell upon us, and its effect was to unite a divided South and divide the public opinion of the North. But the arming of the African would create an irresistible army eager to redress the servitude of ages; but it only deepened and embittered, if it were possible, the contest; confirmed the wavering in their disloyalty, and exhausted the public Treasury; withdrew the negro from effective labor in your service, and has failed to add the tithe of a hair to the effective force of your army. Your pet system of finance would sustain the public credit for indefinite years; and if, at the command of Hamilton, dead public credit rose to its feet. Secretary Chase was to accomplish more; yet even now the system totters to its fall. Capital riots in excessive gains; the wealth of the country rapidly centralizes, and labor already feels the weight of oppression. Over the united judgment of your opponents, and in the favoritism of wealth you ingrafted the principle of commutation in the act for the conscription of citizens in the Army, and after certain States of the East have obtained its benefits you propose its repeal. The measure was a crime or a mistake in the beginning, but its repeal would excite a just and an indignant resistance, it may be even to violence, because its enactment and ultimate repeal would create an unendurable inequality in the burdens of the war between the States of the East and the West.

But why enumerate? What measure of this Administration has failed to be fatal? Every step in your progross has been a mistake. I use the mildest term ofcensure. While you leave the fundamental principles of the Republic unchanged we may submit, but how can we consent that the ephemeral politicans of the hour shall assume the task of revising the grand work of the grand old master work men .'For sixty years theConstitution has remained untouched and unchanged. Not one of the vital principles has ever been impaired except, indeed, by recent usurpation. The twelve amendments made by the men who formed the Constitution were adopted in the same spirit that presided over their original counsels, were but stronger guarantees against the Federal power; stronger guarantees of the domestic sovereignty of the States, and gave such perfection to the noble instrument that for sixty years it has commanded the veneration of the American people and excited the admiration of the world; and through all of this period the eloquence of the wisest and purest statesmen has been exhausted in impressing its excellence and the duty of maintaining it on the successive generations of the American people. And how have the people illustrated in this desperate contest their devotion to this Constitution! It has inspired a heroism the most exalted, an enthusiasm as fervid and self denying as religious faith. It has called into the field a countless army of citizens, and sanctified the grave of every hero who has fallen in its defense. It is this instrument and its sacred power over the public mind that you would impair. Itis apartof the new gospel that you preach. Your deity condemns with a fanatic voice all that is sacred and venerable, and a filial remembrance of our fathers and an imitation of their example in their duty to God and their country become impiety and treason.

The manner whose gallant vessel is driven by the storm on an inhospitable coast looks out with eager solicitude to catch the warnings of the beacon s light, if the firm rock on which the beacon stands can resistthe rage of the elements, he may outride the tempest, but if the beacon light is overwhelmed, the gallant ship is left to the mercy of the storm, and must perish. The Constitution, the serene light of the past, with all of the sacred memories of the past ages clustering around it, sanctified- by tradition and history, is the only power underGod that can save this Republic. Its serene wisdom, its sublime principles, refuting the mad fanaticism of the hour, is the only power that will lead us back into the path of safety.

The fanaticism of the North and the madness and treason of the South have controlled the pubhe mind but a few years. The fall of the great statesmen of the last generation was seized upon as a favored moment for the reign of faction, and its reign has been terrible, intensified by all that fanaticism could suggest and ambition inspire; and fearful, sir, as is now the condition of our prostrate country, I cannot yet believe, sir, that these mad elements are destined to totally overthrow this once noble Republic. I cannot believe, sir, that four years of pitiless and destructive war, terrible as it is, will destroy the strong foundations of this Republic; the fiery rage of fanaticism must burn itself to cinders. Ambition must expose its base aspirations to its deluded followers. The youth and vigorand intelligence of the American people must sooner or later assert their power for humanity and justice and peace. Four years of anarchy and ruin cannot obliterate the memory and tradition of ages. If fortunately the Constitution shall be left unimpaired, and in a favored moment under a wiser administration of our affairs it shall be brought forward as presenting the basis and conditions of reunion and of peace, who shall say, sir, that this monument of the wisdom of our fathers, this solemn guarantee of equity and justice, will not reunite the bleeding fragments of the Republic? If, sir, this Union is ever restored, it must and will be under this Constitution. If under the promptings of vengeance or passion or instigated by the fierce fanaticism of the hour you amend this Constitution, you render desperate the attempt to restore the Union. The subjugation of armies will not avail; you must obtain the voluntary submission of the people. They may submit, I have ever believed they would submit to the old Government of their fathers. If you change that Government by constitutional amendment, whathope have you in the light of human experience of a voluntary submission?

To submit to the Constitution would be to submit to a Government once revered by them as by us; to submit to a Constitution remodeled by yourselves is submission, not to a common Constitution, but to you. It would be madness to overlook the pride of character that pervades and controls every part of the American people. If you amend the Constitution simply to render it hostile to the institutions of the South, you will not restore the Union. However fortunate you may be, subjugation is all that is left and subjugation implies a standing army, a military republic, vaulting ambition, despotism. But in this march of events, with the sanctity of the old Constitution impaired and weakened in the public mind by innovation, what disintegration will occur, what frightful chasms will open, through that broad country now loyal to the Constitution, Sir, all the experience of history warns us against this suicidal act. All changes in the fundamental principles of government are perilous. A wise statesman will never attempt them except upon tbo most deliberate consideration, and then only when imperatively demanded and the danger more than counterbalanced by the manifest benefits. Charondas, the Locrian legislator, enacted that ho who proposed a change in the laws of the republic should do so in the midst of the people with a rope around his neck; that if the change he proposed should be rejected he should be instantly hanged; and for two hundred years Locriawasa prosperous republic. The rash temerity that would seize upon the moment of a nation s weakness to change the principles of government to gratify the insane passions of the hour would bo lightly punished by the Locrian law. This proposition is brought forward as a measure of war. I well remember, sir when on the 27th day of February, 1861, a proposition to submit an amendment of the Constitution to a direct vote of the whole people was brought before this House, a measure of peace, when it was manifest that no other measure would disarm the ambitious conspirators of the South by quieting the apprehensions of the southern people. 1 refer to the Crittenden compromise. It was brought forward as a compromise. It was to be submitted to the vote of the whole people. It was the belief of its venerable author that it would prevent civil war. It was brought before this House by a distinguished gentleman from Virginia. The measure was defeated by 80 votes in the affirmative to 113 in the negative." Every negative vote was given by a RepubH can except that of Thomas C. Hindman, now a general in the rebelarmy. Fourgentlemen are still upon this floor who voted in theaffirmative, S. S. Cox, of Ohio; Robert Mallory, of Kentucky; James C. Robinson, of Illinois; and William S. Holman, of Indiana, Among the southern votes in its favor are John A. Gilmer, of South Carolina, then, and I believe still, an earnest friend of the Union; John S. Millson, the pure and virtuous Representative from Virginia, still loyal to his country; Zcbulon B Vance the present Governor of North Carolina; and Thomas S. Bocock, of Virginia.

Mr. WASHBURNE, of Illinois. I desire to ask the gentleman from Indiana what position Thomas S. Bocock now holds. Is he not speaker of the rebel congress?

Mr. HOLMAN. He is speaker of the rebel congress. It is a striking fact, however, sir that such men, drifting ultimately into rebellion, on the 27th of February, 1801, were eager to avoid the terrible calamities of war by voting in favor of submitting these propositions to the people, while my loyal friend from Illinois, [Mr. WashBURNE,] then voting against that measure of peace because it was a proposition to amend the Constitution, now proposes to amend the Constitution as a measure of war. The gentleman from Illinois offered a resolution in that same connection, from the committee of thirty three that the Constitution of the United States did not need to be amended but to be obeyed.

Sixteen gentlemen are still upon this floor who voted in the negative; one of them, at least, according to his declaration that the Constitution required to be obeyed, not amended. But that was a measure of compromise and of peace, this is a measure of war, of disintegration, of ruin. The voice of humanity and peace pleaded for the one; fanaticism clamors for the other. In behalf of peace and theUnion, you would not even permit the people to vote on the question of constitutional amendment. ^Ve shall see whether, in behalf of disunion and war, you will press this amendment upon a distracted country. I h ye said, sir, that m the formation and adoption of the Constitution and Us amendments, the last of which was adopted on the 25th day of September, 1804, there was an extraordinary unity of public counsel andastate of profound peace. Upon questions so grave and important party and faction were silent, and statesmen of diverging views, in the spirit of compromise, directed the counsels of the people. But this amendment is brought forward as a mere party treasure. It is the attempt to consummate the policy of sectional domination which formed, and has ever controlled, the Republican party, the policy which armed the southern conspirators with the power by which they forced their people into revolution. You propose to effect this amendment by the power of party, by the strength, not of deliberate public will, but of party organization. You make it a plank in your political platform. The danger of attempting so grave a measure through a party organization is well illustrated by the farewell address of the illustrious citizen whom it was once our pride to call the Father of his Country. Alas I what a country now since his counsels have been spurned and forgotten! He says:

1 have already intimated to j you the danger of parties In the Slate, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a- more compiciicntive view, and warn you, in the most solemn nuimipr, against the baneful effects of the spiiitof party generally."

The alternate domination of one faction over another, shaipeucd by the spirit ot revenge, natural topaity dissension, which, in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders ami miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and, sooner or later, the chief ot some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of* his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.

"Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which, nevertheless, ought not to be entirely outof sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it."

Sir, if the noble figure which adorns this Hall upon your right, and which now looks down so calmly upon us, with a sheathed sword by its side, and its hand resting on "the Constitution of the. United States" of America could be fora moment animated by the patriot spirit of him it represents, how would that calm eye flash upon this House! What words of fiery indignation would overwhelm the party tricksters who, having brought his country to the brink of ruin, now in the rage of party spirit assail the Constitution signed by his immortal name, the proudest monument of his wisdom and of that of his illustrious comrades! Sir, as his eye surveyed the men who, holding the destiny of hiscountry in their hands, have betrayed their trust, and now prepare to consummate this parricidal act, how would its fiery luster terrify and alarm! Sir, he" would look on them but to blast, he would speak but to curse." He would speak as Washington alone could speak, Lay not your hand upon the Constitution It is the only anchor of hope that is left for you and for your children. It was formed in the spiiitof fraternal concession. It embodies the matured wisdom of the Revolution. Its spirit would have preserved my country in prosperity and peace. You have rejected its wisdom and my country is in ruins. Lay not your hand upon it. It is all that is left of the rich legacy of the past; traitors assail it with open violence and you by a more deadly because secret assault. You would extinguish its vital power 011 the miserable pretense of reform. Letitalone; itmayagain under wiser counsels revive and redeem my country. How dare you attempt its amendment, you who have neither the patriotism to comprehend nor the virtue to ad minister it in the spirit of its authors!" Such, sir, would be the words of Washington 'if he could speak to this House.

But independent, sir, of the agitation of the public mind and the vicissitudes of war, are not the times inauspicious for the work of constitutional amendment, comparing the era when the Constitution was adopted and the present? In the development of the nobler attributes of mankind the era of the Revolution is the most remarkable in history. Patience, forbearance, and self denial were the common virtues. It was the era of elevated public anil private virtue, of fraternity, conciliation, concession, and over all a patriotism in which individual interests were forgotten, and all, all sacrificed to the public good. Armies poorly clad fought without pay, private citizens exhausted their estates in the public service, and generals and officers of every grade, following the example of their illustrious leader, spurned the thought of compensation beyond actual expenses incurred in the line of duly, and the unworthy citizen who sought to coin fortune out of the grief of his country sank under the universal scorn. Such was the spirit of the age which gave us the Constitution. And what, sir, of the age which would amend it? It is an age, sir, in which the masses of the people emulate the virtues of their fathers, but in which organized party with the insolence of a braggart and the arrogance of a tyrant usurps the supremacy of the public will. It is an era of venality and selfishness; the leaders of public opinion sacrifice their country for private end even to the baseness of self aggrandizement coining into private fortune the life blood of the Republic, and the very statutes of public law look to the aggrandizement of the rich and the oppression of the poor, an age, sir, of truckling subserviency to power, when men are found base enough to crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,

Where thrift may follow fawning;"

when the venal courtier with blasphemous words dares to compare the first citizen of the Republic, but first only in position, the dispenser of millions of patronage, light and airy in the midst of the general grief, partaking, ii>: th e gay and fes. tive scenes of the capital, while the wail of grief swells up from countless fields of battle to the immortal Washington who suffered in every grief of his bleeding country, and on his bended knees■ in the simple majesty of prayer stpjmed the very gates of heaven in her behalf. The one, sir, .is the offspring of a reckless and fanatic party, the, mere instrument of party power the other, sir, was a gift of God to mankind. Washington, sir, was a type of his period, Abraham Lincoln js a type of his party. Is such a time auspicious to revise the work of the patriot fathers?

But as to the merits of the proposed amendment. You propose to invade the domestic policy of States so solemnly guarantied by the Com t Constitution and without which the Union would never have been formed and abolish African slavery, a subject foreign to the Constitution* for it has no relation to domestic, concerns of a State. Its purpose was to unite the States, while each as to domestic government was still a sovereign, as parts of one nation each subordinate, to the Federal head. You now propose to abolish African slavery throughout the United States. I am, sir, a firm advocate of the rights oftlie States. I would maintain these rights with the same fidelity that I would the rights of Federal Government. I am neither the advocate nor the apologist of slavery. In a war for the Constitutionand the Union I would not have slavery weigh a feather against the progress of our arms, if it went down in such astruggle even the loyal men of the South could not complain. But, sir, the Federal Constitution is in no sense responsible for slavery, it is not for slavery noragainst slavery, as itisnot for or against any other domestic institution of the States. It has not the remotest connection with such questions, and even the. clause for the return of fugitives from justice and labor is but a measure of comity to preserve the friendly relations of the States. The change you propose is afundamental change of your Government never contemplated by its founders.

But, sir, what are you to gain by the amendment? In Maryland, Missouri, and Virginia, at least to the extent of the recognized powers of these States, slavery is already abolished. The. President s proclamation, solemnly indorsed by' yourselves and the validity of which you assert, has declared slavery abolished in every State in rebellion except Tennessee. Tennessee, then, a State full of loyal citizens, and the loyal State of Kentucky, with sixty thousand Union soldiers in the field are the only States to be affected, according to your own theory. The slaves ot the disloyal in those States have already been impressed into your employment, so that uponyour. own theory this provision will only affect loyal citizens who, through every misfortune, have adhered to the cause of theircountry. Sir, will this act of violence, this usurpation of a majority under the spur of party organization, increase the loyalty of those whose rights you impair? Is, your condition such, after the terrible effects of your policy on this subject, to justify you in still further impairing your cause in the southern States? Are you so strong and irresistible, laying aside all questions of justice and good faith, that you can afford to, provoke new and permanent causes of hostility on the part of men now loyal totheUnion? So far as this measure affects the interests of your citizens in the slaveholding States it can only provoke indignation and bitterness. Ii' Kentucky wishes to abolish African slavery it is well. 1 should rejoice to know that she. regarded such to be her true policy. It is her own, domestic institution; in good faith and justice it is a measure beyond your power. If consummated, it is but an act of violence. If in the reckless arrogance of political power you assume to annul rights guarantied by your fathers and enjoyed forages—the rights of domestic government and provoke to a just indignation a loyal people, the, result of the folly should fall upon your own. heads; but instead of that you will attempt to meet the conseq eoeeS by new drains upon the manhood of the North. But I warn gentlemen tSS WerFis someiirhit to the duty of forbearance. But what will be the effect on the negroes thus to be enfranchised? Will they increase your military power? WJiy, sir, by your policy you are now availing yourselves of the services of every negro within the lines* of yoVffr "Xrftiy.- In spite of proclamations and law s three and a half millions remain passively within the rebel lines. You only reach them- as your army advances, and then subject them to any service ycra desire. You never dream of consulting their wishes. As to them your past experience proves that this amendment would be a nullity. It would only affect the temper and spirit of men still loyal to your cause, it may do more; it may confirm in the public mind the belief that the war in the secret council s of your ruling cabal is not for the TJmon; that if the Union cannot be restored with slavery abolished the separation shall be eternal.' I charge indeed that such is the purpose of leading" men in the ranks of the Republican party.

But, sir, the amendment goes further. It confers on Congress the power to invade any State to enforce the freedom of the African in war or peace. What is the meaning of all that? Isfreedom the simple exemption from personal servitude? No, sir; in the language of America it means the right to participate in government, the freedom for which our fathers resisted the British empire. Mere exemption from servitude is a miserable idea of freedom. A pariah in the Stale, a subject, but not a citizen, holding any right at the Will of the governing power. What is this but slavery? It exists in my own noble State. Then, sir, this amendment has some significance. Your policy, directed m its mam purpose to the enfranchisement of a people who have looked Willi indifference on your struggle, who have given their strength to your enemies, and then the constitutional power to force them into freedom, to citizenship. If such be your purpose, why deceive a noble and confiding people? Your purpose in this amendment is not to increase the efficiency of your Army or to diminish the power of your enemies. No, sir; you diminish the one and increase the other. You run the hazard of all that to gratify your visionary fanaticism, the elevation of the African to the august rights of citizenship. The Federal power to invade Restates for this purpose, as proposed by this amendment, strikes down tlie corner-stone of the Republic, the local sovereignty of the States, the only resistance this day to a central despotism, the event foreseen and thus guarded against by our fathers. Not only then, sir, the time, thecondition of the country, the distracted state ot the public mind, the actual danger which it must provoke, the absence of any promised benefit to our arms; not only all. these plead in the voice of a supplicating and bleeding country against this new act of folly and madness, but the fatal change it proposesin the relation of theStatesto the Federal Government cries out against it. This act, sir, if it shall have any effect at all, must be fatal; fatal to the very life ot the Constitution, fatal to the fundamental principles of the Republic, the right, the irrepressible right of the States to domestic government. Policy and prudence condemn it; and if it were possible, sir, the very ashes of the Revolution would cry out against this subordination of the States in domestic affairs to the Federal power.

We entered upon this war, sir, with a united North and n divided South, with overwhelming advantages in all the sinews of war, more than twenty to one. With a patriotism never surpassed the people have given you every power you demanded both of men and money. You have had the whole vast resources of the country under your control. Congress, almost without a dissenting voice, and without a moment s delay, lias passed every measure you have required; the courage and spirit of your gallant armies has been all that a patriot could desire; and yet, sir, such lias been the imbecility and fanaticism of your policy that you have united the South, you have divided the public opinion of the North and turn the country into factions; you have sacrificed a half a million of the very flower of our youth, you have imposed upon thecountry the most appalling debt, a debt which will crush labor for ages to come; all of this in three years and a ;half; and yet, sir, what have you accomplished? By directing these mighty energies to one end, the overthrow of the armed rebellion, with the rights of the States and of the masses of the South unimpaired, a year and a half of war would have seen the authority of the Constitution reestablished. Now who can predict the issue? Your policy will not save but will ruin the country, and this constitutional amendment suggests the danger that you already propose to abandon the Union as you have virtually done by your bill for reconstruction, if your policy with reference to the African shall ultimately fail. This Administration is weighed in the balance and found wanting; it inspires 110 further hope; under God the salvation of the Republic rests only m the hands of the people.

But I will not despair of my country. The Constitution, though trampled upon, is still unchanged. I trust in God it will stand to illuminate with the serene light of the past the darkness that gathers around us, that a people worthy of the Republic and worthy to be free will snatch it from the hands of its enemies and cling to it as the only foundation of hope.

And then, on motion of Mr. ELIOT, (at half past eleven o clock p. m.,) the House adjourned.