January 12, 1865

The SPEAKER. The regular order is the consideration of the business m which the House was engaged at the adjournment yesterday, being the motion to reconsider the vote by which the House on the 15th of last June rejected ajomt resolution (S. No. 16) submitting to the Legislatures of the seveial States a proposition to amend the Constitution of the United States, on which the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Smith] has the floor.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Speaker, I ask the induigence of the House for a short time while I state as clearly as I can the reasons which will compel me to cast the vote I shall give upon this proposition. No question has produced more interest or caused more feeling m the country, save probably the war, than the question now under consideration. It is one that affects not merely a single section but the whole country. It is one which demands of each Representative upon this floor, not only serious consideration, but that deliberation which should characterize everyone of us from every part of the United States.

It may be considered by some thatthe position I shall take to day coming from the region of country I do, having been educated and associated with the class of men I have, is a strange one. Yet, nevertheless, I feel it a duty that I owe to myself; I feel it a duty I owe to those around me; I feel it a duty I owe to my whole country, that I should lay aside all personal considerations, all past reminisccnces, all personal interests and devote myselfalone to my country, and to my whole country. Nothing has surprised me more than the declarations of some gentlemen who have spoken on this subject, enunciating in bold and unmistakable language doctrines which, if adopted by the people of the United States and carried out, must inevitably result in the ruin of the Government; doctrines which had their origin more than a quarter of a century ago in the heated brains of southern fire eaters and which have brought us to our present deplorable and miserable condition.

While I admit, sir, the just rights of each individual State; while I would accord to each State in this Union all the nglus to which it is entitled, and would maintain them to the utmost while I would adhere to the letter and spirit of the Constitution in respect to all the rights guarantied to each State, I conceive that there is nothing so obnoxious, so abominable, so ruinous to a republican form of government as that doctrine of ultra State rights which has been asserted recently upon the floor of Congress. It subverts all the principles of this Government; it is in conflict with the true principles of republicanism, and it brings us into a position into which we would not be brought otherwise—perfect desolation and ruin.

I admit, sir, upon the part of a people the inalienable right of revolution; but I deny the position assumed yesterday by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Pendleton] that the right of revolution belongs to a people under all circumstances and at all times. In all well regulated Governments, m all Governments that have had the true foundation, a constitutional basis which is recognized as valid, the light of revolution upon the part of the people does not exist except when that Government has become oppressive and despotic upon a portion of its people. The doctrine enunciated yesterday fell not more harshly upon the ears of the members of this House, nor more harshly upon the people of the nation, than that doctrine enunciated a long time ago by the great secessionist and State lights man of South Carolina, Mr. Calhoun; a doctrine which has been obnoxious to the people of the country since it originated in the brain, not of a patriot or good man, but of one who, though a great man, sought the interest and aggrandizement of a State more than that of the country for which his fathers had suffered and bled and died; a doctrine which has produced rebellion, revolution, and war; a doctrine which has clad the great Government of the United States in the habiliments of mourning, and brought weeping around every hearthstone in the land. Yet with all the facts before us, in the light of truths which should make the heart of every man bleed to day men are bold and audasious enough to rise upon this floor and go a step beyond the odious position taken by other men in times gone by. And more; than that, it is astounding that men upon that side of the House, who have been born and educated in opposition to Democracy, who have made it the object of their life long antagonism, who have denounced U as detrimental to the best interests of the country, should now bi come the champions of State rights and advocate the principles maintained by the modern Democratic party.

Sir, the doctrine enunciated by a great statesman in 1832, that this is a Government of the people, is true to day This Congress emanated from the people; the Constitution emanated from the people*, the States emanated from the people; and the people, not of Ohio, not of North Carolina, not of Kentucky, not of any other individual State, but the people of the whole country, have a right to control it as their best judgment may dictate; and when the people of this country sec proper to alter 6r amend their fundamental law, whatever that amendment may be, if it is in harmony with that instrument itself and in accordance with the feelings and best interests of the people, he who dares proclaim the sentiment that it is not only the right but the sacred duty of a single individual State of this country to resist such an amendment when adopted, announces himself as a revolutionist now and forever, and deserves the desecration of men who favor law and order in the land. When this Government was formed, it was formed not by the individual independent sovereignties; it was formed by a united people who had assembled in their representative capacity for the purpose of making a stronger and more perfect Union; and they declared that that instrument which was to be the fundamental law of the Government might be amended in the way their interests might dictate. I do not, however, intend to debate the constitutional question; but I intend to lay down the proposition that it is the duty of the American Congress, under the present circumstances, to submit this amendment to the people, and that it is the duty of the people to adopt it; because, in my judgment, it was this isolated subject of slavery that produced the revolution or the rebellion; and only by getting rid of this subject can we give permanent peace and tranquillity to the land. While I have had all the prejudices concerning that institution that any man could have, while 1 have had all the education that was necessary to make me believe in that institution, and while, as an abstract proposition, I cannot now altogether deny the principles in which 1 was educated, yet when I view the present condition of the country, involved m rebellion and war, desolation and bloodshed throughout two thirds of the country, I lay aside those prejudices; I lay aside personal interest; I lay aside considerations of State locality; I rise higher than more State interests, mere personal prejudice; I look to the whole country, and the greatest good of the greatest number of the people.

So far as my own State is concerned, and so far as the people of that State are concerned allow me to say here, sir, that while that property in I860 was valued at 107 000 000 it was confined to only one eighth ot the population of thatState. It has been induced below 50 000 000 by the war, and yet there are only one in eight of the population of my State who are interested in the institution of slavery. And two thirds of that, portion who are interested in the institution of slavery are of the meanest, the most designing die of secessionists and rebels. I am not here to legislate for their benefit, for their comfort, for their reward, but I am here to legislate for their punishment, for their destruction, and for the salvation of the loyal people of my State. If I do that which takes from them not only their slaves but everything else they may possess to save the Union people of my State and K give them the protection they are entitled to, then I have accomplished my duty as the Representative of the loyal people, and as a loyal citizen of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know what may have prompted the feelings of my colleague from the Ashland district, [Mr. Clay,] in the charge he made the other day, that the whole of this legislation seemed to be directed by twenty odd States against one loyal State—Kentucky. 1 do not know what feelings may have been in his bosom which induced him to throw such a shaft at the great loyalty of the northern people. He must have forgotten 1861 1862 and 863 and especially 1861. He must have forgotten that when we were in full possession of our property in slaves, when we were in full possession ot our homes, when v c were surrounded by our families, when we were surrounded by everything agreeable, and when we were a happy and prosperous people, it won not tlie Noi th, it was not the vandalism of the North, it was not the propagandists of the North, it was not the abolitionism of the North, but it was the damnable secessionists of the South, it was the men who have his sympathy to day which threatened him and me, and tried by force to compel those he and I represented into the coalition to dissolve the Union. When we were in that straitened condition, when thus surrounded, where did our help come from? Where did our assistance come from? And who called for it? Did we notask Illinois and Indiana and Ohio and New York, and all of the northern States to come to our help? Like patriots and men, forgetting local prejudices that had withheld them from action before, they marched in hundreds and thousands into our State, and across it to our southern boundary, and there stood as a mighty bulwark andsaved us, not only our real estate, but our property in slaves. With the marching of two hundred thousand soldiers there has never been a loss of fifty negroes till 3864, under the enrollment laws of Congress. Sir, I remember well when not only myself but every man on the other side of the House from the State of Kentucky who had been recognized as a Union man was a refugee from his home, a refugee because of that party which to day is fighting for the institution of slavery, looking to its establishment, not only in the States where it was before, but in the States of the Southwest, and in the whole western country, pushing it even into the New England States. I know that they dared not stay at their homes. They dared not continue at their firesides. Yet they, by their action, by their votes, and their speeches, are giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the men whom they here denounce as thieves and robbers and plunderers. I cannot do it; I will not do it; for 1 well remember when this war began the sentiment was enunciated all over the country that partisan politics should be forgotten. Democracy was laid aside; Whiggery was laid aside; KnowNothingism was laid aside; and we came together as one man, and Kentucky s patriotic sons stood by Massachusetts':* abolition sons to battle for one object—the restoration of the Union. I in-" tend to stand there to day I intend to maintain that position by word, by vote, and by action; and my people, the loyal people of Kentucky, I believe a majority of the people of Kentucky, will favor the adoption of this amendment.

Now, sir, Kentucky has never been an ultra State rights party. It has never adhered to the Calhoun doctrine. It has repudiated the doctrine enunciated by Vallandigham. It has denounced the doctrine of Seymour of New York. It has denounced the doctrine of Seymour of Connecticut. It has always been opposed to these ultra doctrines. In the last election it did not indorse the doctrine preached to day by the men on the other side of the House. It did not vote condemnation, in my judgment, of the action of the present Administration.

Now, sir, no man on the other side of this House from the Commonwealth of Kentucky that 1 have known or heard denies the right and power of the Government to make an enlistment of all classes of men for the Army. None of them have denied that such right exists under the Constitution. They have voted against it here because such a course, as they say,' was not politic; and because it svas" robbing" people of their property. But let me ask if every roan from the North and the non slaveholder of Kentucky has not been" robbed" of that which is nearer and dearer to him than the slaves are to any man who lives in Kentucky. Kentucky is a loyal State, and being such they should manifest their loyalty by giving whatever the Government demands, and he who would repudiate the Government and impede its progress, and assist the rebels because of the enlistment of negroes, is not a loyal man, and does not represent the loyal people of Kentucky,

Again, I believe there is not a man m all the South who, if the question were brought home to him directly, and he were to speak the honest sentiments of his heart without prejudice and without the surroundings which exist, would not acknowledge abstractly that the institution of slavery was an evil and a wrong. I have never yet conveised with a man in Kentucky or the South who has not acknowledged that the country and the State would be better off had it not been for slavery. Now, then, while I would have taken no action upon this subject before the rebellion, and would have left it to the people of the States to dispose of the institution as they thought proper, retaining or abolishing it; now that these men have plunged the country into a war for the support and maintenance of slavery, and Kentucky has refused to go into that rebellion and abide by the decision of those who have broken the Constitution, trampled the laws under their feet, and violated every pledge they made to the people, I believe it is time, under the power of the Government, and by the expressed will of the people, to give the strongest evidence of their patriotism and 'philanthropy by cutting up that institution root and branch, and as soon as possible. That would work a hardship upon some, I know, but in a struggle like this some are bound to suffer more than others, and to lose their property and their slaves. But because these things occur must we stop our efforts for the benefit of the Government, the maintenance of the laws, the establishment of peace, and the destruction of the rebellion? No, sir; I tell you that is not the spirit and the feeling of the people upon our side, while it may be the purpose upon the other side to rally around a party which is not in fact opposed to the abolition of slavery, but who intend to use this question as a pretext to. defeat the real ends of the Government.

The South is itself for the abolition of slavery. The Governments of England and France would not under any circumstances recognize the independence of the South unless it is accompanied by the condition of the abolition of slavery, and the South would abolish it to day if those Governments would acknowledge their independence. If the South would come forward and make that proposition in order that they might have their independence acknowledged, what effect would it have upon those foreign nations and upon the Governmentof the United States? We have been fighting for thefreedomof all men and for the defense of a free and republican form of government. We have spent millions and millions of dollars and lost hundreds and thousands of lives for that purpose. Wo have said to the Old World that we are fighting for the maintenance of a free Government. We are fighting not only to restore the Union, but for the abolition of the institution of slavery forever. We intend to establish the great truth that man cannotholil property in man. Now as long as we maintain that position, and by our legislation show to the old country that we intend to carry out that purpose, England and France will stand back, be quiet, and allow us to work out our own salvation. Ijut suppose this Congress by failing to pass this resolution shall show that the millions of the people of the loyal North are afraid to act because of the single State of Kentucky, or because of the interest which a few men may have in the institution of slavery in the South, and the South comes forward and offers, as a condition of the acknowledgment of their independence, to abolish slavery. England and France will upon the application of the South admit the independence of the South in order that slavery may be abolished. But if this Congress comes jip to this question as it should by passing this resolution submitting the question to the people, and the people adopt it, Europe will see at once that the Government intends in good faith to carry out the proclamation of the President declaring thatthese negroes shall be forever free, and that this shall be a republican form of government.

Now, sir, we do not claim in Kentucky that the salvation of this country or this Union depends upon the continuance of slavery. Nor has any Union man in the South claimed, as an essential element of the restoration of this Union, that slavery should be sustained. The State of Kentucky for a long time said, give us a Government with or without slavery, but now the time has come when the people should have it without slavery. And no voteof mine, no action of mine shall ever, under any circumstances, look toward anything else than the utter, absolute, unconditional abolition of slavery in the United States. Sir, men talk about revolution and about the right of individual States to oppose the general laws of this nation. That individual opposition to national laws has brought us to our present position, and 1 say to gentlemen upon the other side of the House that if this amendment becomes the law of the Government of the United States thepeopleof this country will maintain it. There are loyal men enough in the country to maintain the Government. There are loyal men enough in this country to put down the rebellion. There are loyal men enough in the country to bring back these seceded States into the Union, and establish over them law and order as they once had it. There are loyal men enough in this country to put down all insurrection and rebellion in the North; and gentlemen had better be careful how they speak and how they instigate insurrection and rebellion in the North. Men riiay court foreign intervention as much as they please, and ask France and England to interfere; they may point to the intervention in Mexico by Napoleon; but in my judgment, it is the conviction of my heart, there are men enough in the United States of America, not only to whip the rebels, but to whip all the insmrectionists North, and to defeat every European Power that may attempt to interfere ietweenus and our republican institutions. We were born of a power greater than man. Our liberties, our Union, our greatness, and our glory emanated from and have been conducted by the Ruler of nations as well as the Ruler of men. We have progressed wonderfully, rapidly, beyond the expectations of all men and of all nations. We have been able to throw into the field not only a million men, but two million men, and in every town, in every city, in every county as you walk the streets and highways, nobody is missed, scarcely any one is found from home. Let the tocsin of war but sound to day let it he known that England has recognized the independence of the southern confederacy, and that France cooperates with her, and a million men will spring to arms in the United States, and say," Come on, England and France, and damned belie who first cries Hold, enough 1" [Applause in the gallery.] Now, Mr. Speaker,! have never had since this rebellion began the slightest fear that it would not be put down. We never knew but one country. Slavery in the South has kept us back. Slavery in Kentucky has kept us back. Ohio, a younger State, admitted into the Union long after we were, has outstripped us vastly; her railroads running m every direction; her manufactures springing up in every neighborhood; her turnpikes in every community; her towns and cities dotting the land all over. And so with every State North. How is it with Kentucky? With a richer soil than almost any of them; with a finer climate than almost any State in thoUmon; with more resources than any State in thcUnion; more coal, iron, copper, lead, salt, and limber than any other State in the Union; her coal and minerals remain bedded in her mountains; her timber stands on her hills and valleys; her plains uncultivated; no manufactures; 110 steam is heard or seen in any portion of her country; the hum of wheels is nowhere heard, but her people move along at a slow pace because alone of the institution of slavery. The time has come, and 1 thank God for it, when we will wipe that institution out, and Kentucky will stand among the proudest of the States of the Union.

Mr. Speaker, in the adoption ofthis amendment we do not throw upon the Government and upon the community a people, as has been represented by the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Fernando Wood,] powerless, illiterate, inhuman, and unkind m their disposition. They are. a good people; they are an affectionate people; tliey arc an industrious people when properly treated. But there is one idea m this whole system which has kept back the people of the whole South, and that is that one man, and one man alone, has held a whole county, almost—three, four, and five thousand acres of land—and worked it for his individual benefit with five hundred men; whereas if those five hundred men were free there would be five hundred tenements on the same property, and prosperity and advancement would be ill proportion to the interest felt and realized in the community. All the northern or free States fully exemplify this truth. The States of the North have outstripped us in States South in manufactures, in machinery, in inventions, in schools, churches, and all that tends to make a nation great and good and powerful. Her people to day are well fed, well clad, and prosperous; her churches attended, her schools filled, and all happy and progressive; while the South, filled with slaves, is naked, starved, and begging intervention on the grounds of humanity and benevolence. Sir, it is slavery, slavery, which keeps the South down, unprosperous, and undeveloped.

It has often been argued that white laborers cannot make cotton in the South; that the negro alone can make it; that God intended the negro for a condition of slavery, and fitted the South with a peculiar soil and a peculiar climate adapted to the negro laborer. Sir, it is not true. The most productive lands throughout the South are lands cultivated by white men in farms of fifty, forty, or thirty acres. The negro makes cotton, to be sure, but he wastes it. The while man makes it on small plantations, but in proportion to the land worked he produces a great deal more cotton than the negro does. It is said that the white man cannot live there. How does the millionaire who owns five thousand acres of land and five hundred negroes live there? How do his children and his friends live there? How do the eight million white people in the South live there? And how is it that the men of the South are such strong, stalwart, brave men as they have proved themselves to be since this war began? Sir, it is idle nonsense. Wherever in this broad country of ours there is land to be cultivated, there the white man can live, there the white man should live, and there the while man will live hereafter. I know that it is pleasant for a man to have a negro to work for him, to have a negro catch his horse and black his boots for him. No one enjoyed that more than I. But I have come to the realization of the great truth laid down in the good book, that by the sweat of man s brow shall he eat bread, and I have come to the conclusion that it is the best way for a man to fatten. I have increased, since the war began, in flesh and in wisdom.

I know, Mr. Speaker, that many on the other side will die hard; that when they yield it will be with bitterness in their hearts. But they must yield, and that very soon. My colleague from the Ashland district [Mr. Clay] said the other day that the negro property in the State of Kentucky was worth §150 000 000 before the war began; and the tenor of his speech was that the antislavery action of the Government was directed against the interests of Kentucky. That State has only some twenty five or twenty six thousand negroes in theArmy; my colleaguehas butfifteen or twenty. And what is the object of the opposition to this bill? It is to tie down the Commonwealth of Kentucky to the institution of slavery, with the hope that the young negroes may be more valuable after a while than the old ones were when the war began. The whole contest in the State of Kentucky to day is over negroes. And if every negro were taken from the Commonwealth of Kentucky there would not be m thirty days a man in that State to raise his voice against the Government.

Now, why do I approve of this amendment of the Constitution? Why do I advocate it? Why do[ make those declarations? It is because I want peace in the State of Kentucky; because I want the people of that State united; because I want the people of the country united. I know that the war began on the subject of slavery. The speeches in Congress indicated that. Mr. Davis himself declared it. The southern confederacy has so acted, and has so conducted all its correspondence and all its warfare, as to convince the world that the perpetuation of slavery was itsieadingobject. Theenhstmentof negroes in the rebel armies has been opposed on the ground that the confederacy seceded from the United States in order to maintain the institution of slavery, if that were, and is to day the prime moving cause of the rebellion, I ask, in thenameof common sense why, if you love your country if you think that a white man is as good as a negro, is entitled to as many privileges as a negro, arid if you think that this should be a Government, not of black men but of white men, you will not abolish slavery? Give the negroes their freedom and let them go where they please.

It is a question in Kentucky what shall be done with the negroes after they are made free. I know not what others may think of it, but my idea is, from the present condition of our military affairs, from the present status of things, that the rebellion is almost over; that there will be but few other hard battles fought, and that peace will soon be reestablished. When it is, then, with one hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand negro soldiers we can march down by the southern coast into Mexico and say to Napoleon, "Leave this territory!" We will drive out the French and give that country to the cause of freedom and greatness, which will be forever an ally to this Republic, and its warm andunflinchingfriend. We can do it and we will do it. And Napoleon had better look well to his interests in Mexico, and Maximilian had better beware of the fate that awaits him.

You have heard the hue and cry of the fanatical pro slavery men in the country, that these abolitionists in Congress, these northern men, these suddenly converted men from the South, who have come out in favor of the abolition of slavery, are in favor of miscegenation, amalgamation, association, and all that kind of thing. Now, sir, if I believed that there was in this country a man with so little sense as to believe that he would become the equal of the negro, notwithstanding the laws of this country, notwithstanding the protection he can obtain from Congress, then I would be willing to vote for a resolution to give him two medals, one to be worn before and the other behind, with the inscription upon them," lam afraid of the negro, and here is my sign, stuck out prominently, that I am not to be considered the equal of the negro."

Mr. Speaker, in my judgment there never was a sounder or a more philosophical truth communicated by any man than that of the President of the United States, when he wrote to Colonel Hodges, ofFrankfort, Kentucky, that" if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." Whatever may have been my opinion four years ago, I am not, so far as that opinion is concerned, to be questioned for the opinion that I entertain now. You may, if you please, look at our country in 18G0—a magnificent and a beautiful country; one of happiness and of plenty, one where the people mingled and commingled togetheras people of one nation, with a common purpose and a common But there was one principle in this Government which had more to do with the destruction of slavery than all things else put together. The Constitution declares that every citizen of the United States shall have equal privileges in every other State. That principle was denied to the whole North by the South unless the man adhered to the sentiments of the South. The very fact that slavery could not be discussed in the South killed it. The very fact that men from the North could not go to the South and speak their real sentiments induced the people of the North to become bitter toward the institution. Now, when this revolution shall have been closed, when this rebellion shall have been put down, my judgment is that that principle of the Constitution will not become fully established until the man from Massachusetts can speak out his true opinions in the State of South Carolina, and the man of Mississippi shall be heard without interruption in Pennsylvania. That is a glorious principle to fight for; and if we can accomplish it, with a united country, with a united people, with a people of one common purpose, we can all say that the war has not been in vain; that we have suffered much, thatwe have expended much, yet the great principle of the freedom of man has been accomplished by the war.

If slavery is not wrong, then what is wrong? It prevented a man from speaking his sentiments in the South. Go ask the South why they se.ceded, and the answer will be, to establish slavery. Go travel over this vast country and witness the thousands and thousands of new made graves, and ask what caused them, and the answer will be, slavery. Go ask the tax payer of this country why he is to day called upon to pay such heavy taxes to support the armies of the Government and to conduct this great war against the rebellion, and the answer comes back to us from every one, slavery is the cause. Why are we wrangling in Congress to day upon this subject if slavery is not wrong? Why does the conscientiousness of every man in this country accept as the truth that slavery is wrong?

If it is right, if it is apostolic, if it is according to Scripture and of divine origin, then why are not men convinced of the truth of that? We all know that slavery will resist the Government, will ftp lit against the Government, until it is destroyed and abolished from the whole extent of our country. And the man who now stands up for this obnoxious, and abominable, and nefarious doctrine of State rights is not the Union man that was found in 1860, or even the Union man found so far back as 1831 and 1832. Sir, I would give all the States their full rights. 1 would give each State and each individual all the rights that can be demanded from the Constitution, and I am thankful to believe that the principle which will be promoted and established by the prosecution of this war will be that this is to be one country, and one Government, for one people; a Government over all the States, free and independent States, but each State owing allegiance to the Government of the United States.

My opinion is that whenever a State undertakes to rebel and to violate a single law of the United States, it is the duty of the Government of the United States to coerce that State, and force her to obedience, even at the point of the bayonet. That was the doctrine which was preached when our Constitution was formed. In the letter which was addressed, by the members of the Convention that framed that Constitution, to the people of the United States, asking them to adopt that Constitution, the very idea of consolidation was recommended as an argument in its favor, in order that we might have a strong and powerful Government. What is that recommendation?

In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view that which appears to us tlie greatest interest ot' every true American—the consolidation of our Union— in winch is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety; perhaps our national existence. This important consideration seriously and amply impressed on ourmmds led each State in the Convention to he less rigid on points of inferior magnitude than might have been otherwise expected."

Now, sir, there was the doctrine of consolidation, preached by the fathers of the Government, by the framers of the Constitution. Those men believed that the power existed in the Government to execute all the laws enacted by the Government, and that when the Government was formed the States gave up everything connected with sovereignty; there was nothing of it left in a single State. Therefore the idea that a feeble, insignificant State has the right to oppose a Federal law, a law of the nation, is obnoxious and abominable, leads to war and destruction and anarchy. It is a doctrine under which we cannot maintain the Government.

[Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. COX obtained the floor.

Mr. L. MYERS. I hope that, by unanimous consent, the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Smith] will be allowed to proceed.

A Member. For how long?

Mr. L. MYERS. For fifteen minutes.

There was no objection.

Mr. SMITH. 1 regard the present condition of our country in a different light from many men who have spoken in this House. I believe that the union of the States is an inevitable result of the war. I believe that just so certainly as these States were united under the original compact between our fathers, just so certainly will they, by the blood which is now being spilt, be brought back to a stronger union, a more surely perpetual union, and a more glorious union than it was before. I believe that all the wrangling, all the disaffection, all the discord which has existed heretofore, making the North a section and the South a section, inducing war, civil war, bloody war, will be done away with forever. We are just beginning to realize and develop the resources of this country; we are just beginning to exhibit the richness of our soil; wo are just beginning to show the rapidity with which our commerce is to be extended, and our population increased; for nothing is more remarkable than that, in the midst of this great and terrible conflict, when every nun is expected to go in and assist in the war, our statistics show that the emigration from Europe is as great as at any preceding time. The whole world is looking upon the action of the United States to day England, France, Russia, and other nations have at one move emancipated all the slaves in their respective dominions. Kentucky and the other States of this Union in which slavery is maintained will, ere long, by a similar grand act, decree emancipation, so that there will be no slavery within the borders of our country. Then shall we be a great people, a proud people, a prosperous people. Then shall we go on and develop the resources of the country, and show ourselves a nation such as no people upon the face of the earth have ever seen before. Sir, this will be a country of civilization, a country of education, a country of religion, a country of refinement, a country of great men and great women, a country which will command the respect and admiration of the whole civilized world.

Gentlemen upon the other side say that we had better beware how we act; that we had better not be revolutionary ourselves; that it is impossible to produce harmoniousness between the North and the South. I tell gentlemen who thus speak that they know nothing of the South. They have been educated and trained alone in the North. They know nothing of the genius of the people of the South. Though those people have been deluded and led astray, and thus induced to enter into this great conflict, yet, when they shall have been once well chastised, when they shall have been brought back to the strict obedience to the law, they will be as acquiescent as any people upon the face of the earth. It is their character;- it is their disposition. Men who would favor the separation of the Government, men who act today under the idea that the South is to be independent, might as well abandon that opinion and promptly give their adhesion to the Government in all its actions for putting down the rebellion. Just so certainly as we sit here to day shall we ere many years have every State in this Union represented upon this floor as a free State, and as a part of this great Confederation. Louisiana and Arkansas stand knocking to day Tennessee will be here shortly. Other States are coming on. Georgia has manifested a disposition to loyalty that no one expected before General Sherman marched through that State and occupied SavanYou may say that these defeats of the rebels, the occupation of all these places by our forces, mean nothing. Does the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Pendleton,] who spoke yesterday of our victories, mean to say that they accomplish nothing toward the restoration of the Union? That southern soil will never be given up, the country around Richmond will never be given up by our gallant soldiers. If it should be the disposition of any of the departments of the Government to yield that soil, they must first go and consult the soldiery who have marched over that land and made it sacred by every step they have made toward the subjugation of the South. Go and ask the army of the Potomac if they will yield the sacred battle fields on which they have fought. Ask them whether they will retire and leave that Virginia soil to be a part and parcel of the southern confederacy, and each man who wears the uniform of the nation will point to a new made graveandsay," Here lies my comrade; this land is made sacred by his blood and his bones; and it never shall be surrendered to traitors." Go to the soldiers of the army of the Cumberland, who were with General Sherman in his glorious march to Atlanta, passing through a country every foot of which was contested for one hundred and fifty miles, and ask those soldiers whether they will retire and yield that territory to the southern confederacy. No, sir; the proud soldiers bf the West, the brave soldiers of the North, all the gallant soldiers of the Union will point to the last resting places of their comrades and say," This land has been made sacred by these noble deaths; it is ours; we will keep and maintain it, and here with God s help we will defend it or lie cold and helpless corpses."

We will never yield up this country. It is ours. We intend to keep it. We intend to fight for it; and if every man of our present armies is killed, if they are vanquished and driven back, wo have a million men more behind who will rise up, take their place and march down far South even to utter annihilation. We do not intend to give it up. We intend to bring it back. We intend to make it one people, one nation, under one Constitution, with one purpose, one common end, the glory of the nation, the glory of our people, the civilization of the land, the education and Christianizing of mankind. Then we shall have but one aim; all men shall be free; there shall be union, and there shall be no divisions and dissensions in the length and breadth of the whole land.

Sir, it should be the highest incentive to every American that we shall not act alone for to day Instead of being controlled by self interest instead' of looking to the luxuries surrounding us, we ought to look forward to the myriads who are to come after us. He, indeed, would be a selfish man who would look alone to himself and for himself. We should follow the great and glorious example of our forefathers. They looked notalone to the present. They looked not to the morrow. No, sir, they cast their eyes far into the future, and they saw hundreds and millions of people occupying the country for which they fought. Therefore they were stimulated to make more sacrifices, to lose more lives, and spend more money in order to make them a free and independent nation. Shall we not lay aside these momentary feelings? Shall we not forget momentary luxuries? Shall we not look forward one hundred and fifty years and see millions of freemen, men who know no masters, and one free country, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific under one Constitution, with the one motto of Union and liberty forever?

Mr. COX. Mr. Speaker, when we left these Halls last year there was a prospect that the administration of the Government would have been changed by the election. The political conventions of the two parties met. The party of the Administration made this amendment of the Constitution a part of theircreed. They wentbefore the people claiming the power to abolish slavery by constitutional amendment. Nowhere did the opposite party take ground against the power; everywhere they took ground against its exercise. The convention which met at Chicago adopted their creed. It called for a cessation of hostilities, with but one view, a national convention, in order to reestablish union. Not giving up the principles laid down in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798and 1799, when moved by my colleague [Mr. Long] in the convention, which, rightly considered, constituted a main foundation of its political creed, it laid them on the table on my own motion, as abstractions unsuited to the demands of the agonized country. Regarding peace us the great practical need of the hour, the convention waived all other questions to reach that. How? By the Constitution, in its fifth article, which provides that a national convention shall be called for proposing amendments to the Constitution. This proposition of the convention was at onceour weakness and our strength: ourweaknexs when misunderstood by the people, our strength when rightly interpreted. My colleague [Mr. Pendleton] accepted that platform, in casting my vote for him I knew that he indorsed it. He indorses it yet. if he had been elected to that office, which he would have graced so well, we might to day have been appealing to Legislatures, North and South, and not m vain to two thirds of them, to call the convention at the will of the people. The North would have yielded and the South would not have held back. That my colleague and myself well know. In that august assembly the distinguished men from both sections would have been present. What would have been the scope of their action? What the subject of their debates? Need I ask? It would have been the settlement of all grievances, North and South; questions ofdebt, doubtless; questions ofguaran tee to State and municipal rights, doubtless; but beyond doubt, this vexata questio of slavery, thus leterrima causa belli, and the agitations and legislation growing therefrom.

Mr. Speaker, I read this morning, with what truth I know not, that a commissioner is now in Richmond with the confidence and assent of the Administration, meeting, pei haps, a commissioner on the partofthe confederate authorities; and the rumor is that they have agreed to call a national convention. [Sensation.] 1 know not whether there is anything in it. My friend from New York whositsbehind me [Mr. Fernando Wood] says that there is not, and he is presumed to know more on that subject than I do. [Laughter.]

if, in the providence of God, such a convention were called or were now in session, and this question came up in a full representation of all the States, who would think of disputing its power to modify, change, alter, and abolish, either at once or gradually, by constitutional amendment, the institution of slavery? Not a man. While, therefore, in a state of war, and with nearly half the States in default and absent, 1 may deny the wisdom of "acting either by the one mode or the other, pointed out for the amendment of the Constitution in this particular—I will not deny u power so essential to peace, safety, and sovereignty. No ingenious refinement or dazzling eloquence shall lead me to deny a power which may yet prove our salvation, when wisely used. Who upon this side asks me to shut the door in the face of such a saving power? Let him rerft ember that while the power may now threaten to destroy, the power to save is forever bound up with it. The power that can create, the same can destroy. Under the ribs of death at the last moment this power may be invoked to create the heart and soul of union, and that, too, by the array of States in their sovereign capacity, as modified by their granted powers.

Do you tell me that such sovereignty can only guaranty, but cannot destroy property, either in man or beast, in land or house? If a convention of States can take jurisdiction to protect property they can to destroy. It is admitted that the States individually can do this. If by the Constitution they as States, all consenting to it, have provided a mode of doing it, what matters it whether it is done by them in their individual capacity or in their conventional capacity? Whenever two thirds agree to propose amendments and three fourths shall ratify, either by convention or Legislature, the proposition is" a part of this Constitution." It is the States that do this in the first instance, all according«in making the amending clause; again by their convention in proposing; and again by ratifying. Therefore I join my colleague in singing hosanna to that principle of our government just denounced by the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Smith] as so nefarious sovereignty of the States, i see here not one monster iron crown, like that of Lombardy, compelling, as from an omnipotent scepter, the subject States, but each of the States making for themselves a fundamental law or organic compact.

Even by this amendatory clause they pluck from their u round of sovereignty" each a crown jewel to form and decorate the Federal diadem. Each of the States, sovereign m their reserved spheres, drop their scepters before the Federal emblem, in all cases where, as in amendments, the Constitution is declared the" supreme law of theland."

Tell me not that this power is dangerous when left unlimited in the Federal head. All power is dangerous. It tends to abuse. This is no argument against its existence, only against its exercise. My colleague [Mr. C. A. White] holds that the States can make him—now a free white man slave by local law. Is there a more dangerous power when exercised? It is worse than the power to create or destroy property. But he admits the power if its place of lodgment is only local. If, then, the States can do this by local law, can they not do it in any other way they choose? They can by the same power make him again a freeman. Nay, more; there may be possibly a greater guarantee m an enlightened land against his being made a slave by the votes of the States, all convoked in the mode prescribed by the Constitution, than in the separate action of the States unassisted in their organic work by the prudence of their brother States.

My colleague [Mr. C. A. White] says the States are unlimited and absolute m their sovereignty, and therefore the Federal Government is not sovereign. 1 ask him to beware where this doctrine leads But may not the States in their unlimited and sovereign convention, deriving their powers from the original consent of all, give up portions of their sovereignty, modify it, as Mr. Calhoun holds, by the amendatory clause? May they not thus speak the most potential voice of the people of the States in all alFairs? It is the people of all the States who consent to amending the Constitution, and by a mode which allows two thirds of both Houses to propose the amendment, which is to be sent to the Legislatures for the ratification of three fourths. First and last and all the time, the States are the constituents of the Federal Government, and as such, and by their State action, they can create and they destroy. I am of the State rights school so far as (his question is concerned, and of the strictest S Mr FERNANDO WOOD. I desire to call the attention of the gentleman from Ohio to the language of James Madison in the Federalist:

That wefu 1 alterations will be suggested by experience, could not be but foreseen. U was. requisite, then lore that a mode lor introducing them should bo provided. The mode j piet'oired by the Convention seems to be stamped with every mark of piopnety, it guard* equally againsttliat extreme facility which would render the Constitution too mutable, and that extreme difficulty which might perpetuate itsdiscovercd faults. It moreover equally enables the General and the State governments to originate tue amendment of errors as they may be pointed out by the experience on one side or on the other."

Again, sir, Hamilton says:

For my own part, I acknowledge a thorough conviction that any amendments which may, upon mature consideration, be thought useful, willbc applicable to the organization of the Government, not to the mass oj its powers; and on this account alone 1 think there is no weight in the observation just stated."

Mr. COX. The only comment I make upon the quotations of the gentleman from New York is this: Madison in the Convention opposed and voted against the proposition of Roger Sherman to except all internal police of the States from the amendments of the Constitution. The quotation is in harmony with lna vote. For ho only holds, as Judge Story holds, that the mode of amendment sufficiently guards the Constitution against mutability; and that the "amendment of errors" cannot be made without the concurrence of Federal and State governments, in Congress and in State Legislatures. He did not expect that fundamental changes would be made—only "alterations;" but he does not deny that there is any limit to the power. This is no authority against the power, but an argument for it. Mr. Madison holds to the power because he believes it cannot be abused, owing to the restraints placed by the Convention upon Us exercise. Further, I know, from having read the private correspondence of Mr. Madison, published in this city by Mr. McGuire for private distribution, that he always held to the idea that the only mode by which a dissolution of the Union or a secession of the States could ever be legally accomplished was by this organic and all powerful clause of amendment. He laid it down so broadly that it would even cover the remark I made the other day, considered so extravagant, that we might by the fiat of the States even build a monarchy upon the ruins of republicanism.

As to the quotation from Mr. Hamilton, I do not see its application. 1 am not prepared, without readingitcarefully, to makea fitting comment. It strikes me that it does not limit the power of amendment. It is rather the expression of a strong conviction that all amendments will be and ought to bo applied to" the organization of the Government, not to the mass of its powers and that none others would be useful. I quite agree with the opinion. Now, with all respect, I appeal to my friend from New York, who belongs to the strict State rights school of politics, and even stands so perpendicularly that many people believe that he leans backward, to consider the view of Mr. Calhoun upon this subject. I am sorry my friend from Connecticut, [Mr. Dimming,] who has the volume, has not brought it here this moi ning. The quotation will be found in his sixth volume page 36. In 1828 the South Carolina Legislatui e asked the opinion of Mr. Calhoun upon this and kindred subjects. In that declaration of political power, drawn up for his State, he teaches that the people of that State by adopting the Federal Constitution had modified its original light of sovereignty, and that by its consent in becoming a member of the Union, that power had been placed in the hands of three fourths of the States in whom he said, the highest power known to the Constitution exists. I do notgive the quotation with that length and that emphasis which belong to it, but I will insert it in my remarks for the edification of my friend, who is a most earnest disciple of John C. Calhoun: