January 7, 1865

The SPEAKER. The next business in order is the consideration of the business in 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 a joint resolution (S. No. 1G) submitting to the Legislatures of the several States a proposition to amend the Constitution of the United States, on which the gentleman from Ohio Mr Bliss is entitled to the floor.

Mr. BLISS. Mr. Speaker, I deem it my duty to the people whom 1 represent as a member of this body, to utter in their name some words of protestation against the immolation of the Constitution of the United States which is threatened by the representatives of the party which holds the majouty of this House. In that sacred instrument is contained the life blood of our Government, and in its fate is involved the highest mortal inteiest of the American people.

Revolution, leaping in the daik, is ever of the mostdangeroostendency. We shall act foolishly as a nation if we allow ourselves for any selfish motive to forsake and spurn the well tried principles and pohcy upon which our fathers built our Government, and from the just application of which nothing has resulted in opposition to peace, prosperity, and unprecedented national advancement. We shall act foolishly and rashly if we abandon the approved guarantees of national happiness and greatness which Heaven and the loftiest human wisdom have permitted us to possess, and adopt in their stead some untried and speculative policy, the realization of which is only in vague imaginations of an uncertain and imperiled futuie.

There are many reasons why I cannot, consistently with rny conscience and my views of the true interest of my country, accord my vote to the initiatory step to what I regard as the revolutionary measure proposed, in the first place, and which alone is sufficient for my determent, it would involve me in the guilt of a willful violation of the solemn oath without which I could not have become a member of this body. That oath binds me, like many taken before it, to support, maintain, arid defend the Constitution of the united States. That solemn obligation I have ever intended to keep, and cannot relax in my purpose now when the ax of a party majority is raised in an illegitimate way to strike down its provisions. The plain terms of the obligation preclude any attempt to change or destroy any of its provisions or guarantees, except by the lawful mode which itself provides, and which is laid down in its fifth article in the following words:

"The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of tiie Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of this Constitution when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided, that no amendment which may -be made prior to the year 1808 shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article, and that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate."

Upon what reasoning and recognition of facts does any memberof this Congress claim the possible power, under the foregoing article, to take the initiatory steps to the change proposed? Are the States whose people, in part, are in rebellion against the General Government out of the Union in theory and in fact? Are they foreign Powers, and their inhabitants foreign people, not subject to the Constitution and laws of the United States? If so, why do wc raise and send mighty hosts to enforce, by the sword, the bayonet, and the cannon, obedience and subjugation to that Constitution and to those laws? If the people of the socalled seceded States are not citizens in the Union, "why are our courts engaged, under an act of Congress in confiscating their estates for acts of treason against their Government? Treason implies citizenship; it cannot be committed by an alien or an enemy, if those States are not out of the Union in theory of law, and if their people owe the allegiance to the Government of the United States which is claimed of them, then clearly those States are among the number of States three fourths of whom mustunite their voices upon any proposition to amend their Constitution.

That they are not so legally in the Union, and bo to be regarded as States with a controlling portion of their people in rebellion, is a new and recently assumed proposition and at war with every executive manifesto, proclamation, and declaration from the first act of secession till now. From the commencement of what every one has called rebellion the people of the Federal States, of all parties, and without distinction, have agreed upon the common idea and doctrine that ordinances of secession are null and void; that the sovereignty of the Constitution was unalterably fixed upon all thepeopleof the realm, and on thatfaith and that only, the Union loving patriotism of the country has responded to all calls made by the military administration, and allowed the blood of the nation to be freely poured out and expended, and a grievous national debt to be incurred. Are we now to see the predominating party holding these great issues in its hands change front upon this vital question? If so, then manifestly, with the policy of the nation in their hands, there is no hope of a restoration of the Union. A change in our public councils must occur or we shall be stripped of the birthright which we most valued.

But were the proposed action practicable in a legalpoint of view, 1 should shrink from the policy as putting us upon untenable ground, and making us to assume the character of aggressors while we profess to be fighting against and punishing aggression who ought m this terrible business, to have no stain upon our hands. Undoubtedly the rebellion is a great wrong; but it would certainly be meeting wrong with wrong to deny them their original constitutional rights in the Union when they shall have returned to it. Whoever wishes for their return should openly condemn all such policy. Whatever moral question may be involved in the subject of negro slavery in any State of the original Confederacy is a question for determination and settlement only by the people of such State. To abandon or maintain the institution according to the sense, will, and policy of the people of such local sovereignty, was an undisputed right before and at the time of their entering into the Federal Union; and the great compact of confederation, the Constitution of the United States, gave them no new right in that respect, but only guarantied to them the undisturbed enjoyment of a preexisting right, with such full recognition of the same throughout the country as should enable them safely to assert their right of property in the labor of slaves, even in the recapture of fugitives from their service in any State. By the amendmentitis proposed to crush out a sovereign right and power which never was placed within the jurisdiction of any authority except the local sovereignty by whose laws it exists. Such is the main principle of the Government framed by Washington and his compeers. It cannot now be changed except by revolution. The success of this proposition would dash the cup of hope from the lips of a majority of the people of all the adhering States. It is the desire of a great majority of our people to reconstruct the Union upon its old basis. Upon that basis compromise can be made and the war honorably closed; but upon no other or more restricted plan can it be done. Subjugation of the South, and sway over it, can be accomplished only by standing armies. We cannot dictate inany other way the abandonment of their constitutional and reserved rights. Can we afford the blood, the expense, the general suffering, the lack of all substantial success, which must attend upon such policy?

The pretense of a humanitarian motive toward the negroes amounts to nothing but a display of systematic and intense hypocrisy. All sensible men perceive that the negro slaves, whether held under the new bondage of the so called freedmen, on confiscated plantations, or scattered in want and undeserved suffering over the North are the muchabuscd and unfortunate victims of an unlawful interference with the protection and support to the benefits of which they were born; and that the best possible disposition of them is to restore them to their primal condition. They have been used as a party political instrumentality to their bitter cost, and they have sense enough to know that politicians cannot reverse the decree of Almighty God and make their race equal socially or politically, with while men. Such may be the opinion of the fanatical politician; but the more sane mind of the negro, weak as it may be, has too much perspicacity not to perceive the deceptive bait which is thrown him. Many of them are now sighing for the happy homes from which they have been seduced.

Let us take honest counsel together and agree to let the Constitution alone, with the hope of restoring the happy old constitutional regime. That the Union may be restored and peace again pervade this distracted land, it needs only that the prevailing voice of the people should declare for an acquiescentadministration of the Government according to the Constitution, which all Americans once acknowledged as the palladium of our national honor and glory. Upon such just and judicious proffer the States and the people could no longer be kept in severance. They would recohere with the power of magnetic attraction. Whoeverdisbelieves this is blind to the teachings of the most illustrative history and to the whole field of political cause and effect. Union men should do nothing to lessen or defer the probability of such a result, but hasten to apply the efficient cause by which it may be achieved.

I am aware that on this important occasion, which involves nothing less than a summing up and exhibit of all the Republican victories over the ballot box and the denouement of the original purpose of that party, we must expect to hear, instead of a fair discussion of the great subject, the usual and familiar stump speech poetry of the driver s lash, the horrors attendant upon the disfranchisement of" our brethren" by theaforesaid sum of all villainies," that the awful importance of this bold attempt todespoil the American Constitution, considered in the effect its success will be likely to have upon our national condition, will not secure in this time and place a logical, dispassionate solution of the question presented, but that political partisanship on the part of the majority will furnish much of the influence controlling their acts.

The conservative members of this House should recognize a double duty in the crisis and eventful epoch of our history in which they are placed— the duty of respectful reverence for the wisdom and patriotism of those who were enabled to construct the grand edifice of statesmanlike thought and popular liberty which many seek now to subvert or overthrow, and also the high obligation resting upon them as trustees for a coming generation, who in the midst of sorrow and oppression may demand of them what they did in the time of mortal action for the preservation and transmission to them of their inheritable and inalienable rights.

The SPEAKER. The question is on the motion to reconsider the vote by which the House rejected the joint resolution submitting to the Legislatures of the several States a proposition to amend the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. ROGERS. How much of the time which the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Bliss] was entitled to occupy remains?

The SPEAKER. Thirty five minutes. If, however, no other gentleman claims the floor, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Rogers] will be entitled to occupy one hour.

Mr. MALLORY. If the gentleman from New Jersey will allow me a moment, I desire to ask whether it is the purpose to bring this question to a vote to day

Several Members. Oh, no.

Mr. MALLORY. Is a time fixed for closing the debate?

A Member. Next Monday.

Mr. MALLORY. I hope that the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Ashley] will allow more time than that for the discussion of this question before we act on it finally.

Mr. ASHLEY. 1 stated yesterday that I had no design to press a vote; that whenever itmight be the pleasure of the House to take a vote on the subject it would be satisfactory to me.

The SPEAKER. The Chair will state that when the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Bliss] resumed his seat, no gentleman claimed the floor. Therefore, in the absence of amotion to postpone, the Chair was compelled to state the question on the motion to reconsider.

Mr. PRUYN. I thought that the vote had been ordered to be taken on Monday.

The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Ashley] said that he would not ask a vote until Monday.

Mr. MALLORY. My reason for making the remark which 1 did was that I understood the Speaker to say that the gentleman from New Jersey would be entitled to the thirty five minutes remaining of the time of the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Bliss.]

The SPEAKER. No other gentleman claiming the floor, the gentleman from New Jersey is entitled to the floor in his own right for one hour.

Mr. COX. By permission of the gentleman I desire to saya word. Some members on thisside of the House, who desire to discuss this question, are not prepared to do it now, and may not be on Monday, if gentlemen on theotherside will consent that the taking of the vote shall be postponed till a week from next Monday, it will be agreeable to gentlemen on this side of the Chamber.

Mr. ASHLEY. Mr. Speaker, I do not desire to bind the House to any request which may be made, but I will say this to gentlemen on the other side of the House, that so far as I am concerned whenever a majority of the House desire a vote I shall have the privilege of demanding the previous question.

Mr. HOLMAN. I suggest that before the adjournment to day it be agreed to postpone the subject over to next Friday, which is also a private bill day, and that the discussion continue Friday and Saturday, when the vote shall be taken.

Mr. ASHLEY. I prefer for the present that the discussion should be continued to day and Monday, and to leave it within the power of the majority of the House to take a vote wheneverit may so decide. I will notcall for a vote unless pressed by a majority.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, it is the first time in the history of this country, until the present party came into power, when any body of men claimed that in the Constitution of the United States, and by virtue of the laws of the several States before they formed it, each State had no right to legislate and control its own domestic institutions according to us own judgment exclusively. In this question there is not only involved at this time the propriety of interfering with the Constitution of the country, but behind that a grave and serious question, in my judgment, arises, whether there is any power in the confederated Government of this country by any act of legislation and confirmation of the Legislatures of three quarters of the States to interfere with the domain of any State whatever, or its right to control the institution of slavery or any other domestic institution, which was not delegated to the General Government but reserved to the States exclusively.

I say, sir, that all the parties of the country, not only the Democratic party, but the old Whig party, and the Republican party, untilJately, always claimed and held that this institution of slavery was peculiarly under the province of the individual States, and that when the States entered into this confederated Government the powers that they did not delegate to that Government were expressly reserved to the States; that no power not delegated to the General Government could by the force of any amendment to the Constitution be taken away from the States, because they had only confederated themselves together for the purpose laid down in the organic act, and because it would be an act of the creature not given by Us creator.

If I understand the object of this Government, it was to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, and I hold now, as the law of the land and as the well settled principle laid down by the authors of the organic act and by all the great men who have written 011 the subject, that the institution of slavery belongs peculiarly and solely to the States, and that no thirtythree States, or any other number, by combining together have the lawful right to deprive a single State of an institution which was not delegated to the General Government, and which was reserved by the people when they entered into the confederation of States and formed the American Union. If it be true that the States where slavery existed never delegated the right to intei fere with that institution, what light has the Congress of the United States or the people of other States, through their Legislatures, to interfere with slavery m another State, which institution is peculiarly and solely the creature of the State right which was never delegated to the General Government, and to interfere with which has always been held by all parties we had no light? Solely and alone it has been always held that the institution belonged exclusively to the jurisdiction of the States.

If Congress will take the pains to look over the platforms of the different political parties of the country they will find that for years and years they have iterated and reiterated the truth that the rightof each State to control this domestic institution according to its own judgment exclusively was essential to the balance of power upon which our fabric of government depends. If you look at the platform adopted by the Republican convention at Chicago, which nominated Abraham Lincoln in 1860, you will find that it lays down that the right to control this domestic institution rests exclusively with the States, and that that right is essential to the perfectionand endurance of our political institutions.

Now, if it was a principle of this Government, well recognized, that it was a right reserved to the States to legislate upon this subject according to their own internal will, it is a right which still exists. Because this country has been involved in a war; because a civil revolution has rocked the country from one end to the other; because it is now a question who is responsible for the war, that does not change a lawful principle if that principle existed before hostilities commenced; and •we are bound now by the same rule, controlled by the same law and indubitable principle which never dies or passes away, and it is reserved to the people of the respective States to day and hereafter to control and do as they see fit with that which was never delegated to the General Government, but expressly reserved to the respective States.

This institution of slavery is one which has existed time out of mind, which existed before our forefathers landed upon American soil, which is an institution imported from Great Britain and other countries, one in the progress of which large sums of money had been made, which had become a part and a feature of the government of the different States, and of the colonies of this country before the Declaration of American Independence and the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. No one will deny thatbeforethe formation of the Constitution, and at the time of the Declaration of Independence, the institution of slavery was exclusively under the jurisdiction and control of the organic law of the State in which it existed. If that is so, is there anything to be found in the organic law which shows that when those nine States first ratified the Constitution they delegated to the General Government any right whatever with regard to this institution? On the contrary, did they not, by the very language of the Constitution, reserve all powers not delegated to the General Government? And if they did reserve it to the people of the respective States, if it was an institution of the States, I ask any man how it is possible, by any amendment of the Constitution, for the General Government to become possessed of the right to legislate upon and control an institution the power over which was never delegated by the States when they entered into and framed the Constitution pf the country?

You will find by looking at the organic law that those amendments which are provided for by it mean amendments which shall be germane to the organic law itself. The framers of it, the men who assembled in the old Halls of the Confederation in 1787, after having been purified by the glories and the triumphs of the Revolution, intended that amendments only should be made which were germane to the organic act, and which were within the purview of the powers which were delegated to the General Government. There is nothing in the Constitution which recognizes for one moment that the whole structure and framework of the Government may be amended or altered in reference to matters reserved to the States, matters never delegated to the General Government.

If the position in reference to the amendment of the Constitution taken by gentlemen on the other side of the House be true, then the other relations of the States, the marital rights, the rights of husband and wife, of parent and child, of master and servants; the right of licensing hotels, the right of making private contracts, the rights of courts, tile manner in which they shall obtain evidence, the allowance of parties to be witnesses, the jurisdiction and powers of State courts, the rights of suffrage for State officers, constitutions of States and all the rights which now belong to the States, upon the same principle may be interfered with, abolished, and annulled. Those rights, like those connected with the institution of slavery, belong solely and exclusively to the jurisdiction of the States, and were never delegated to the General Government. Does any man here believe that Congress, by a constitutional amendment, can so far alter the organic law of the land as to interfere with marital relations in the States; interfere with the manner in which evidence shall be given; take away the constitutional provision that a man shall enjoy property by descent in certain ways defined by the organic law of a State and blot all States laws out of existence? 1 ask, do gentlemen here believe that by constitutional amendment the General Government would have a right to do away with all those express and reserved rights of the States, and which were never delegated to that General Government and never constituted a part of the jurisdiction of the Congress of the United States or of the people, except that the people of each State could act and legislate upon those individual concerns according to their own judgment exclusively, and the dictates of their own consciences?

You must remember that it is proposed by this amendment that the States in which slavery exists shall have no vote, because they are not in a position to exercise the right to vote upon thisquestion. But it is proposed that three fourths of the States—States wherein slavery does not exist; States which have no interest m that species of property—shall get together, and by the action of three fourths of them deprive of thenproperty the citizens of the loyal border States; the men who have braved this current of war, and shown the proudest and purest patriotism of any class of men on the face of the earth; the men who have invested their money in slave property; the men whose fathers fought side by side with the men of New York and New Jersey on the battlefields of the country to drive bacK the invaders of England. Shall it besaid thatunder a republican Government, in a country supposed to be one of liberty, that we can trample on the rights of those men by taking their property without any compensation whatever and robbing them of that which by the Constitution of the country isguarantied to them, and which by the blood of their fathers who fought against the wickedness and tyranny of England was handed down to them to be perpetuated to them and their children and. children s children unimpaired forever?

Does any man here believe that the members of the Convention that Washington and those men who assembled in Philadelphia to frame this sacred instrument, the representatives of the northern and southern States, who went there to carry out the will of their masters, the people, intended that when they reserved rights to the States and did not delegate them to the General Government, that three fourths of the States, without the consent of the other one fourth, could, by combining together under the form of an amendment, deprive the other States of these privileges which they wrested from King George, for which they fought, and which were guarantied to them by the organic laws of their own States, and protected and defended in particular respects, to which I shall refer hereafter, by the organic law of the Union? 1 want to read one paragraph from the platform upon which the party which is represented upon the other side of the House established themselves at Chicago upon this question. They then held the doctrine which we now and ever have held. It was left for this revolutionary Republican party to proclaim a doctrine so destructive to the great interests of the citizens of this country, and the fundamental law of the land.

The third paragraph of the Republican platform reads that—

'rile right of each State to legislate and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively is essential to that balance of power 011 which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend." Now, is that true? Is the rightof each State to legislate and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively essential to that balance of power upon which the perfection and endurance of our Republic depend? Was it true in 1860 that the right of each State to legislate and control its institutions in that way was necessary to the endurance of this political fabric? Why did the Republican party establish that platform? Why was Mr. Lincoln nominated upon that platform and go to the American people in 1860 and ask them to support him? Why, it was because he knew, as the old Whig and Democraticparties and all parties had known, that no amendment to the Constitution by the interference of Congress, or of two thirds, or nine tenths, or nineteen twentieths of the States could take away institutions existing in the States, the control over which had never been delegated to the General Government, and to interfere with which the Federal Government can find no warrant in the organic law. I do submit that in time of peace, in times when passion did not hold sway, but reason exercised its functions, it would be difficult to find a man in this country who would hold to the doctrine that, under the terms of the organic law in the contemplation of those who made it, any number of States have a right to take away the legislative, judicial, or domestic functions of any other States unless those functions were delegated to the General Government.

But, sir, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Ashley] says that he does not believe any constitution can legalize the enslavement ef man. I will quote his language:

"I do not believe any Government, democratic or despotic, can rightfully make a single slave, and that wllicll a Government cannot lightfully do it cannot rightfully or legally authorize or even permit its subjects to do. I do not believe that there can be legally such a thing as property in Let us examine the organic law and the state of society in this country before the Revolution and formation of the Constitution, and I think I can plainly show that slaves were property. It is not our duty to settle the justice or injustice, the policy or impolicy, of slavery. It will not be disputed that before the adoption of the organic law every State had a right to confer tin whom it pleased the rights and privileges of citizens, and it cannot be successfully denied that property in the African race was then sustained by law, and it will not be denied by any lawyer that the several States never surrendered these rights and privileges by adopting the Constitution of the United States. Will any man then pretend that the provisions of the organic act in relation to the personal rights to which a citizen of the State was entitled included the negro African race at that time here, or who should afterward be imported? Every person who was a citizen and recognized as such 111 the several States became also a citizen of the Union, but none other. It was framed by them and for them and their posterity, but for no one else; and the personal rights guarantied to citizens of the Union were intended to embrace those only who were then members of States according to the provisions of the organic law and the doctrines on which it was founded.

Who were citizens of the several States under the governments of the thirteen colonies when they separated from Great Britain and took their places as an independent nation? Who were the citizens whose liberties had been violated by the mother country, and who declared their independence and determined to defend their rights by force of arms? Neither the persons who had been imported as slaves nor their descendants, whether they had then become free or not, wore then included in the general words of the Declaration of Independence or acknowledged as a part of the people. They had for more than a century before been regarded as an inferior race and not fit to associate with whites, socially or politically; that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for the benefit of the while race; he was bought and sold like any other article of merchandise. It was an established axiom in morals and politics which no one disputed, and "which was not considered open to dispute; and no nation more uniformly acted upon it than the English Government. They seized them on the coast of Africa and sold and held them for their own use, and were more engaged in this commerce than any other nation in the world; and the opinion and practice of England naturally impressed themselves upon the American colonies, and every one of the thirteen colonies bought and sold them as such. Not one of that race had then migrated to this country voluntarily, but had been brought here as merchandise; and slavery existed in every State save one at the adoption of the Constitution, at which time there was no Government of the United States in existence with special, enumerated, and limited powers. Not only did slavery lawfully exist before the formation of the organic law, but it is expressly recognized by the Constitution. Representatives and direct taxes are in part apportioned by the number of slaves:

"ltepresentativo* and direct t ixc« shall bo apportioned anion# the several States which nuiy he included within this Union, according to their res poem e number?, winch Phall be determined by adding to the whole number of hee persons, including those hound to service 1 or a term of year#, and excluding Indian* not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration shall he made within three years alter the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent icim of ten years, in such a manner as they shall by law direct." —Article I, section '2.

"The migration or importation of such persons as any of the State* now existing shall think propei to aamit, shall not be prohibited hv the Congress prior to the jeai 1808, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars lor each person.-' —diilicle 1, section No person held to sci vice or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, he discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."— Article 4, section 2.

Now, it does seem to me that the decision of the Supreme Court of theiUnited States in the celebrated Dred Scott case, although riot upon this particular point, yet goes clearly to show that there is no authoiity, by amending the Contsitution of the country, to interfere with rights of the States which never were delegated to the General Government. 1 will read a part of the judgment of the court in the case, as well to show that slavery cannot be abolished in this way, as for the purpose of showing that it is a well settled principle of law, which can hardly be denied by any living man, that slaves are held as goods and chattels, and can be bought and sold like any other property.

But it is proclaimed that because the Declaration of Independence declares that all men are born equal, having certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it never was intended that slavery should exist lawfully. I presume that no rightminded man will pretend that the framers of the Declaration of Independence, when they said that all men were born equal and had certain inalienable rights, intended to include slaves, because slaves at that time never had held any political rights. Slaves had been held here long before the formation of the Constitution; the institution had been transmitted by England and other European nations to the colonies here; slaves were treated here as property liable to be bought and sold, and not as citizens within the meaning of the Declaration of Independence or of the original laws of the country. I will now read from the Dred Scott decision, 19 Howard, page 410:

It then proceeds to say,' We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal; th it they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable lights; that among them is life, liberty, and the pursuit ot happiness i that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted, deriving their just power* from the consent of the govei ned.'

"The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human family, and if the} were u ed in a similar insti tunenl at this day would he <0 understood. Hut jt is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and loimcd no part of the people who framed and adopted this Decimation; i or if the language, as understood 111 that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who fiamed the Declaration of Independence would have been uucily and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they asserted and instead of the sympathy of mankind, to which they soeonfidenlly appealed, they would have deserved and received universal rebuke and reprobation.

"Yet the men who framed this Declaration were great men, high in literary acquirements, high in their sense of honor, and incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting. They perfectly understood the meaning ofthe language they used, and how it would be understood byothcis; and they knew that it would not in any part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace ilu; negro race, which, by common consent, had been excluded from civilized government, and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery; they spoke and acted according to the then established doctrines and pimeiplc5', and in the 01 ordinary language of the day, and no one inisiindeistood tin m. The unhappy black race were separated from the white by indelible marks and laws long before established, and were never thought of or spoken of except as property, and when the claims ofthe owner or the profit of the trader were supposed to need protection.

Tin* state of public opinion had undergone no change when the Constitution was adopted, as is equally evident from its provisions and language."

"The powers over person and property of which wc speak are not only not granted to Congress, but are in express terms denied, and they are fot hidden to exercise them. And this piolnbiucm is not confined to the States, but the words are general, and extend to the whole terut orv over which the Constitution gives it power to legislate, including those portions ot it leinaimng under tei 11 tonal government as well as that covered by States. It isa total absence of power everywhere within the dominion of the United States, and places the citizens of a Territory, so far as these rights are concerned, on the same footing with citizens of the States, and guards them as firmly and plainly against any inroads which the General iJ Government might attempt under the plea of implied or incidental powers. And if Congress itself cannot do this, if n is beyond the powers conferred on the General Government, it will be admitted, we presume, that it could not authorize a territorial government to exercise them. It could confer no power on any local government established by its authority to violate the provisions of the Constitution.

It seems, however, to be supposed that there is a diffeience between pioperty in a slave and other property, and that different ink"- may be applied to it m expounding the Constitution of the United States. And the laws and usages ol nations and the writings of eminent jimst? upon the relation of master and slave and their mutual lights and duties, and the powers which Governments may exercise over it, have been dwelt upon 111 the argument. to it the benefit of the provisions and guarantees which have been provided foi the protection ot piivafe propeuy against the encroachments ofthe Government.

Now as we have r. heady said m an earlier part of this opinion upon a different point, the right of pre peri) in a slave iodistiiictiynndcxpresplyaffirmed inthe Constitution, The right to tiaflic in n like an oidmary aiticie of mciehandise and property was guarantied to the eitiztn? ot the United Stati s, in every State that might desire it ,for twenty years. And the Government in express terms is pledged to piotect it in all future time if the slave escapes from his owner. This is done in plain words, too plain to be misunderstood. And no word can be found in the Constitution which gives Congress a greater power over slave property, or which entitles property of that kind to less protection, than property of any other description. The only power confeiied is the power coupled with the duty uf guai ding and protecting the owner m Ins lights.

Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the court that the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the territory of the United States north of the line therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void; and that neither Died Scott himself, nor any of his family, were made free by being carried into this territory even if they had been carried there by the owner with the intention of becoming a permanent 1 resident."

I take theground, sir, that is taken in this decision, that it is beyond the power of the Federal Government, not only beyond the power of Congress, not only beyond the power of those who may sit here as the Representatives of the people to actand legislate for them, but that itis beyond the power ofthe constituted authorities of America, of the people in their sovereign capacity, by any amendment of the Constitution to interfere with an institution that belongs solely and exclusively to the jurisdiction of an individual State, without the consent of that State. And I ask what safety there would be in a Republic like this if three fourths of the States could deprive the other fourth of those rights, jurisdiction over which was not delegated by the States to the General Government? Would not the whole framework of the Government be thereby overthrown? And would not despotism and tyranny, in times of war and excitement, prevail over the land in bold and undisturbed impunity? Would it not be a recognition of the authority of three fourths of the States to trample upon those rights and liberties transmitted to us by our noble ancestors who fought side by side together, and handed them clown to you and me to protect our lives and property from the influences of despotism and tyranny?

I submit that the proposition on its very face is too absurd to deserve consideration in a republican Government. Can it be that those intelligent and patriotic men who established the independence ofthe Government and who battled for their liberties till the soil of our country was marked with theirblood from hill to hill and from plain to plain, intended that the life of freedom breathed into their nostrils might be crushed out by the tyranny or paitisan passions of Congress, or of three fourths of the States, and that a minority of the States might be treated as conquered provinces? It is a doctrine which would reduce American freemen to the grade of Russian serfs. There are lawyers on the other side of the House who know the general rules governing the construction of statutes, contracts, and constitutions. They know that we must construe the Constitution according to the reason and the spirit of it. We must, consider what animated the minds of the people and of the delegates who framed it. What were the object and intention ofthe framers of it? Was it their intention that after going through that vast scene of blood, after such an exhibition of patriotism as the wot Id had never seen, those rights for which they had fought and won, to protect their liberties, their properties, and their households, might be torn from their descendants by the vote of three fourths ofthe States, against the plain principles for which they fought? Did they ever intend that a twothird vote in Congress, and three fourths of the States, could take from the fourth ofthe States certain institutions which were guarantied to them as much as my property was guarantied to me, or our fathers' or grandfathers property guarantied to them by the success of the Revolution, and by the organic law of the land.

It is dangerous, in the present state of the country, to undertake to trample on the precious landmarks of the Constitution. We have been taught to believe that it is the barrier by which the tides of despotism and tyranny aie to be kept back. It is only by upholding that barrier that our citizens can escape the evils of that unconstitutional desolation of the country, the evils of this terrible unprovoked war, for which a portion of the people of the North are more accountable than the people of tlre South. In these times of excitement, when private rights are so much trampled on, it is dangerous to trifle with the sacred landmarks which the wisdom of Washington, of Jefferson, and of the great statesmen and heroes of the Revolution had established in our land as principles to be handed down to us, and to secure ourselves and posterity from the wickedness of unscrupulous tyrants.

But, says the gentleman from Ohio, slavery is the cause of the war. Sir, slavery is not the cause of the war any more than were seamen the cause of the war of 3819. Th« war of 1812 with Great Britain was because she interfered with our seamen; and the same argument might have been made then that is made now in regard to slavery— that seamen were the cause of the war, and that if we had not had seamen we would not have had war. I tell you, sir, that it was the interference with the rights of American seamen on the part of Great Britain that caused the war. It was not because there were seamen, but because the rights which the Government of this country guarantied to and threw around them were invaded by Great Britain, and they w.ere taken from the decks of our ships, the soil of America, and forced into the service of a nation hostile to us. Great Britain, by her acts, caused that war.

The history of our country will, in pages red with blood, record that this war was caused by the acts of the abolitionists of the North; of those men who interfered with the institutions of the South. Those men are responsible for all this bloodshed which is now wetting American soil, and causing the earth to groan beneath the deadly weight of the commingled bones of our brethren. I charge here to day that this interference with slavery has alone severed our glorious Union; blighted our national prosperity; wrecked our civil and political liberty; studded our country with the graves of noble soldiers; caused a hundred fields to weep with brothers' blood; and the screams of wives and mothers to emanate from domestic circles at the ghastly appearance of a tyrant s assassin dragging from the death bed of a wife or the grave of a child the husband and father, to be incarcerated in a dungeon or cell. 1 implore you, in the name of truth, do not charge upon slavery the cause of this war. By the history of this country I charge that such men as Wendell Phillips, Horace Greeley, Lloyd Garrison, and those in power, have been the promoters of this war, and the blood of this nation rests upon them. Thank God, I am free from it. And there is another consideration which I would urge—one of still greater moment—one which slits the heart of this nation, and which I trust will yet bring back the glory of the American people. 1 urge that at this time it is not patriotic to urge such a measure as this. It tends to distract the country; it embitters all the elements of social life; it separates the ties of religious brotherhood, and weakens those greatprinciples for which this Government was founded, and for which the blood of the. people both of the North and the South was so freely poured out.

I see b( fore me patriotic men from the State of Kentucky; the State which has stood between the nvV f the North and the ire of the South; a State that has been true to the Constitution; whose sons here represent the principles ever held by that great statesman Henry Clay; a State that stands by the landmarks of the organic law of the land as the only palladium of our cml libei ty. In the name of God, is it justice, is it magnanimity, is it in accordance with that injunction of Scripture, u Do unto others as ye would have others do unto you," to strip from those men the valuable rights of property which were considered sacred until this civil war raised its hydra head? Is it just and right to take away from those men now, after they have for three years and a half interposed their State for the protection of our firesides and our families, to take away their property without any compensation? By what right do we propose to take away this property without paying for it? The Constitution says that private prop-\ crty shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. Now, if we regard at all the rights guarantied by the Constitution, by what right do we propose to take away the property of the loyal men of Delaware, Kentucky, and other States, without just compensation?

Nearly every man, if not all ofthem, in the Convention who framed the Constitution of the United States were slaveholders; that the Constitution of the United States not only recognizes the right of the States to hold this institution, not only allowed them to continue to hold itand notgive it up to the General Government, but that Convention, comprising these wise and patriotic statesmen, expressly fortified and sustained it. They not only declared that slavery existed, but that the importation of slaves should not be interfered with until a time named in the Constitution, and they puta provision in the Constitution that no amendment should be made to it which should interfere in any manner with the right to import slaves from foreign countries until the year 180S and out uf which trade Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and other States made money until that year. "Why will you regard other prohibitions contained in the Constitution, if you are to pay no regard to those prohibitions and guarantees which relate to this institution?

The power to interfere with the importation of slaves into this country was delegated; but it was provided that it should not be exercised until the year 1808. The Constitution can be amended m that respect, because by the organic law the power to make such an amendment after the year 1808 was expressly granted; it was made one of the ligaments which interwove the different parts of the Constitution together. Because that was made a part of the organic law of the land, and for that reason alone, the Federal Government, by two thirds of Congress and three fourths of the State Legislatures, representing the people who made that Constitution, has the right to make such an amendment. "Why? Because that is an amendment contemplated by the organic act; it isan amendmentu it hin thcpurvicwot the powers delegated to the General Government; it is an amendment in relation to a question the control of which is not reserved to the States; it is an amendment which the General Government was expressly authorized to make. It was provided by the Constitution that until the year 1808 the importationof slavesshould notbe interfered with by the General Government, but that after that date Congress might make any law they deemed proper in regard to that matter.

No man, though he search till the end of time, can show me an instance in which an amendment has been allowed which did not come within the plain letter or the spirit of the Constitution. Examine, if you choose, the amendments which were adopted after the Constitution had been ratified, and the Government established. Those amendments, which were adopted by the people because they apprehended that their personal lights, their life, liberty, or property which they had fought to maintain during the mighty strife of the Revolution might be invaded, weto germane to the Constitution itself. You will find none but such as came within the powers delegated to the General Government, either by the spirit or the letter of the Constitution. For, sir, the Constitution is to be interpreted, not only by its letter, but, like all other laws, by its spirit, and the object had in view by its framers when they made it, which object was to preserve the rights of themselves and their posterity for all time to come.

Another evidence that it never was intended that tin ec fourths of the States should have the power, through the process of amendments to interfere with the domestic policy and internal concerns of the other States, is found in the fact that no such authority is in the organic law. Every gentleman here knows perfectly well that in the Convention by which the Constitution was framed attempts were made to give the General Government power to interfere with the institution of slavery. But all propositions of that kind were rejected. Sir, the Constitution would never have been framed, the wise principles of our fathers would never have been embodied in the General Government, the flag of this country would never have waved in triumph from the dome of this Capitol over this degenerate race but for the fact that our fathers saw, when such propositions to interfere with the domestic institutions of the States were voted down, that the rights for which they had fought, and which had been embodied in the organic law of the States, should never be trampled upon by the tyranny or despotism of fanatical power. The right to maintain the institution of slavery was reserved to the respective States. If you examine the Constitution to arrive at the meaning of its framers, you will find that by that organic law certain rights were expressly prohibited to the States—among others, the right to coin money, make treaties, grant letters of marque and reprisal, &c.*

Why were those prohibitions expressly inserted, if it was believed that powers were delegated to the General Government when no express language to that effect was used? Do I make myself understood? 1 ask, why did the Convention which framed the Constitution declare in that instrument that certain powers should not be exercised by the States? It was because those powers were intended to be exclusively delegated to the General Government; because it was the design to endow that Government with the exclusive control of those subjects, and because it was provided in another part of that instrument that "the powers not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people." Thus was exhibited the object of the framers of the Constitution; that they intended to guard State lines; that they were not willing that their children, to whom this Government should descend, should be deprived of the benefitof those immutable principles of American liberty for the defense of which they had resisted and defied the power of Great Britain. Guided by an almostsuperhuman foresight, those who framed the Constitution stamped indelibly the landmarks for our guidance; and among the most vital principles which they soughtto preserve was the rightof the respective States to the control of their own domestic institutions. If slavery can be abolished by an amendment of the organic law in States where it exists, without their consent, then by the same process can slavery be established in States where it does not exist, and against their consent, if three quarters of the States so decide. Was a doctrine so monstrous ever contemplated by the illustrious dead who framed the organic law? Yet such was the case, if one fourth of the States can be deprived of their slave property by the action of the other three fourths.•

Why, gentlemen, where are we to land if such a constitutional amendment as is now proposed be lawful? Look at the declaration of the platform adopted at Baltimore, the platform upon which Mr. Lincoln received the suffrages of a majority of the American people. That platform declares that slavery is the cause of the war, and that the preservation of the national life demands its complete extermination; and on that groundit approves, as coming within the powers of the Constitution, the proclamation of Mr. Lincoln abolishing slavery. If Mr. Lincoln, by the spirit and meaning of the Constitution, was justified in issuing that proclamation, and if it was so far valid as to confiscate property m slaves, what is the necessity for this amendmcntto the Constitution? If that proclamation abolishing slavery is the law of the land, as declared by a large portion of the people tin ough their representatives at Baltimore, when they emphatically proclaimed to the world, and asked the suffrages of the American people upon the announcement, that Mr. Lincoln'« proclamation was a death blow to the institution of slavery and was warranted by the Constitution, why ask this legislation? Ah gentlemen it shows to you and it shows to me the danger of all such interferences. Itshows that in the same way you may by an amendment to the Constitution declare the right of trial by jury abolished; that the right of freedom from unreasonable searches shall no longer remain; and thatthatarticle which declares that no man shall be deprived of his life, liberty, and property without due process of law, may also be taken away. In like way by an amendment to the Constitution you may establish an oligarchy, a despotism, or a monarchy upon the ruins of this Republic.

I have no doubt I will be told that this is rebellious talk, and that it tends to aid and comfort the rebels. I avow here that it is my conviction we have more to fear that our rights and liberties and property will be taken away by the despotic usurpations of the abolition party than from the acts of Jeff. Davis or the confederate government, and I am here to day to enter my protest against the high handed acts of the Administration. Although I have not heretofore taken up much time of the House by the discussion of these topics, still I have not ceased to enter my protest against those acts to which I have referred. I protest against them as a citizen of the United States, and as a citizen of the gallant State of New Jersey, which has clung to the Constitution of the United States as the ligament of the Union, a State whose brave sons in thousands have gone from her hills and her valleys and laid down their lives a willing sacrifice for their country; a State which has always been true to the Constitution and the Union and which,! thank God, has never yet cast her vote in favor of the wild fanaticism of abolition which has run riot all over this land. I have already shown that the organic law provides that taxation and representation of the country shall in part depend upon the number of slaves. In other words, it is declared that slaves shall constitute a part of the population which is to be represented in Congress. If this amendment be passed, that portion of the Constitution will still remain. If I understand correctly, there is no intention on the part of this Congress to interfere with that portion of the Constitution. The Constitution, then, will provide that taxation and representation shall be according to a certain number of these slaves. You make no provision for making these emancipated slaves citizens of the United States, or giving them any power in the sovereignty of a State. You do not change their political condition. How then can they be represented as provided by the the Constitution? What a strange anomaly shall we then have—the Constitution providing that they shall be represented when they are not really represented! If this be passed I tell you that it will be the last act in the dissolution of the Union, for the southern people can never be expected to come back and with bended knees bow down to the imperial dignity of this Administration as serfs and slaves.

I want the Union restored. 1 want the Union as it was made for us by our fathers. I want the Union which was made by the patriots, the statesmen, the brave men of the times that tried men s souls. I want the Union which protects the liberties of white men and women. I want the Union that has given us peace and prosperity and grandeur such as never before belonged to any nation in the world. But I tell you that we can only have such a Union by adhering to the immutable rights of all the States. The Union is the only condition of peace; we ask no more. If you love the Union as much as I do, if you want the Union restored, let it be known that it shall be restored with all the rights and privileges that came down to us from our ancestors. I repeat what General McCleilan said," The Union is the one condition of peace; we ask no more." We want to preserve the blood of this nation. We love our country, and we cannot afford to make war upon the people of one section for the purpose of carrying out any frenzy or false philanthropy of those who have undertaken to recognize that doctrine.

[Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. DAVIS, of New York obtained the floor, but yielded to

Mr. PRUYN, who said: I wish simply to make a statement to the House with reference to this question, without entering into a discussion of its merits.

When this subject came up at the lastsession, I stated my views somewhat at length in regard to it. My position then was substantially that under the power to amend the Constitution we could not interfere with or take away the reserved rights of Uie States. I do notnow propose todiscuss the subject of slavery in any way; I did not then. I look upon the question before us simply as one of power, and it is immaterial m this view whether it relates to slavery, to the marital relation, to the Jaws of descent, or to any other of the subjects over which the State governments have entire control. I then remarked that if gentlemen would look at the debates of the State conventions which passed upon the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, they would clearly see that that instrument would never have been ratified had it been supposed by the States that under the power to amend their reserved rights mightone by one be swept away. This is the first time in our history in which an attempt of this kind has been made, and should it be successful it will, in my judgment, bean alarming invasion of the principles of the Constitution.

1 have only to say in addition, that further investigation has confirmed the views I before expressed, and I cannot therefore vote in favor of this proposition, believing the subject to be one not legitimately within our jurisdiction. If it be asked what then can be done, I answer, leave the matter with the States, where it belongs, or obtain a supplementary article to the Constitution, not as an amendment, but as the grant of a new power based on the consent of all the Slates, ts the Constitution itself is.

Mr. DAVIS, of New York. Mr. Speaker, I did not intend to trespass upon the time of this House during the discussion of this bill, but I have heard from the lips of two or three gentlemen whose views have been expressed here sentiments which are not in accordance with my own, and I think it due to myself and to my constituents that I should place upon record the sentiments which will control my action and determine my vote. Having lived more than half a century, I have never, until this morning understood to its full and perfect extent the definition of civil liberty. I find, by the commentary of the gentleman from New Jersey, [Mr. Rogers,] that civil liberty consists in the right of one people to enslave another people to whom nature has given equal rights of freedom. Sir, civil liberty, in my judgment, has no such interpretation, no such meaning; and no man who regards himself as made in the image of his IV Maker, solely responsible to his Maker for. his thoughts and actions, can recognize a sentiment which lowers him in his own estimation, in the estimation of Heaven, and before the face of the whole world. Nature made all men free, and entitled them to equal rights before the law; and this Government of ours must stand upon this principle, which, sooner or later, will be recognized throughout the civilized world.

But we are told, while assertingthis principle of legal or civil equality, that we are violating the fundamental principle of the Constitution under which we live, by the measure now under consideration. I can see no such violation, and even if there were a technical violence done to the letter of the Constitution I should hold it defensible for the purpose of preserving the life and the power of the Republic which our fathers framed for the perpetuation of civil liberty.

As I understand it, our Constitution wasframed and the Government organized for the purpose of perpetuating the blessings of liberty to all in present and in future times. That Constitution provided the mode of its amendment, and the power of amendment was restricted in two points alone." The one was in reference to the importation of persons'* or slaves, before the year 1808; and the other was in restriction of the power of the people to reduce the senatorial representation of any State without its consent; all else was left to the future, determination and judgment of the people of the United States, as a united, aggregate, and sovereign nation.

What powers, sir, were in the purview of those who framed the Constitution and of those by whose votes it was adopted? If gentlemen will rise from the narrow and restricted interpretation of the text to the magnificence of the exordium by which our fathers in that Constitution announced the formation of a republican Government founded on the principles of equality and justice, they will find that the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity, ordained and established ourConstitution and the Government of the Union. These were the greatand cardinal purposes for which the Government was framed. Liberty, that civil and religious liberty which was so clearly and beautifully defined in the Declaration of Independence, and which in the language of that Declaration, had been proclaimed to the world as the inalienable inheritance of every man, gave vitality to the Constitution and the Government which by it was called into life. The unfortunate restriction which then existed in our land upon universal freedom, in the form of African slavery, was regarded as temporary in its character and as tolerable only by reason of the exigencies of the hour. Our fathers predicted that the time would soon come when the interests of the country would demand thatslavery should pass away. Jefferson predicted it, Washington prayed for it, and all the great men of that great age believed that the stain of African slavery would soon cease from the land.

But, sir, as years rolled on, slavery, once regarded as a crime and a curse, became to the South a profitable institution. The acquisition of new territories adapted to slave labor, and the increased value of cotton arising from the invention of Whitney, have rendered it for the interest of the South to maintain slave labor which capital might own and which avarice might control. Interest, individual interest, bound up in the almighty dollar," has lent its support to an institution which in its origin was forced upon an unwilling people by the imperial power and cupidity of England; and upon that institution has grown up a caste, an aristocracy, based upon the ownership of labor, of sinews, bones, and blood entirely inconsistent with republican government and republican institutions. It is this power thus grafted upon and maintained by slavery which has undertaken to overthrow this Government. The honorable gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Rogers] has just told us that the interference of northern men with slavery has been the cause of the existing war. History repudiates and denies the declaration. This war sprang from the aristocracy of the South in an effort to maintain and to extend a system of servitude on which alone that aristocracy could be perpetuated. For the last thirty years this sentiment has been publicly and repeatedly proclaimed by leading southern statesmen, and their most influential legislators long since declared that in view of the vast increase of wealth and population in the free States, culminating, as finally it would, in political ascendency, the preservation of aristocracy and of slavery which supported it dictated a dissolution of the ties which bound the southern States to the Federal Union.

This war was conceived more than thirty years ago, and John C. Calhoun was present at us conception; and yet we are told to day that this war was sprung upon us by the action of the northern abolitionists, and by men interfering with the rights of the southern States. I tell the honorable gentleman from New Jersey that this Government as such never laid its hand upon, the institution of slavery. On the other hand, it has yielded, and the people of the North have yielded year after year, and time after time, to the demands of this slave power in order to promote peace throughout our borders. I could go on for hours enumerating the concessions which have been made to this power of slavery; and yet the South has never been satisfied. Were we of the North responsible for this war? No, sir; the South commenced it without cause, and commenced it while they had control of this Government from its head to its foot; while every department was in their power, and while they, through their public men, admitted that it was beyond the power of this Government for the next four years to interfere with the institution of slavery.

Sir, this war was not commenced by the South for the purpose of protecting the rights guarantied to them by the Constitution. It was prosecuted for the purpose of taking away rights secured by that Constitution to the people of the whole country. And when they attempted to overthrow that beneficent Government of our fathers, I, for one, who had for twenty five years, in every place where my voice could be raised, defended, so far as I could, what I regarded as the constitutional rights of our southern brethren; I, who had denounced the extreme northern sentiment on this subject, made up my mind that if the South could voluntarily make war on this Government for their institutions and to overthrow ours, it was my duty, as an American citizen, to do all in my power to protect our Government, even at the expense of slavery or of southern aristocracy. Sir, slavery should find no protection and no apology among gentlemen who represent the free States of the North.

Slavery has wrought too much of evil; it has shed too much of innocent blood; it has sent too many of our citizens, our brothers, ourrelativcs, and friends to inhospitable graves; it has held its carnival of blood and death on too many battlefields for gentlemen from the free North to stand here as its advocates and defenders. And yet what I would do would be done in no spirit of malignity, in no spirit of vindictiveness, in no spirit of unkindness. I would say that slavery should die because it is irreconcilable and incompatible with freedom; because it has undertaken to destroy our Government, to subvert our institutions, and to cause desolation and suffering and death throughout the length and breadth of the land.-

1 am no advocate for the exercise of tyrannic and despotic power. 1 have no feeling of bitterness toward the misguided and deluded people of the South. I love the Union too well for that. It is for the Union and the Union alone that I plead to day For that Union I am ready to give up every resentment, to forget every sacrifice that the North has made, and to ask the people of the South to come back into the Union with those principles of freedom which shall makeand which alone can make the Union perpetual. I have known from the reading of history that the exercise of despotic power is always wrong and always disastrous. I would not, then, exercise that power. We have seen it exercised abroad for the purpose of restricting liberty of opinion. "YVe have Seen it exercised in Holland where, for more than seventy five years, the despotism of Church and State attempted to control the minds of men. And yet, through those years of disaster and suffering, the people of Holland adhered to their religious faith and finally maintained the independence of their religious sentiments. We saw it in Spain where the despotism of Charles V and Philip II and II! drove from the borders of Andalusia five hundred thousand Moors to the coast of Barbary. We have seen it in England, where, from generation togeneration, religious and State despotism attempted to interfere with the rights, civil and religious, of British subjects. And yet, sir, we have never found that the exercise of despotic and arbitrary power produced any good result to the people.

No, sir, we must not proceed in the exercise of arbitrary and despotic power. It is with love, kindness, conciliation, exerted in every channel where love, kindness, and conciliation may be exhibited, that we should proceed. In every way where we can consistently with our duty, consistently with the existence and protection of the Government, show kindness to the South, we are bound to do it for the sake of the Union. I, for one, am willing Ho wipe out the record of the past, bloody and painful as it is, and to show that we can take back our erring and repentant enemies into the Union, with all the rights which we, as northern men, possess under the Constitution of the country, and with no other. That, sir, in the full enjoyment of American constitutional freedom, gives them everything which our fathers claimed, and which we claim now under the Constitution.

Now, sir, what is this proposition? Is it despotic and arbitrary in its character? Not at all. We propose simply to submit to the people of the States the proposition to amend the Constitution. It requires the assent of three fourths of all the States represented in this Congress. Did they not agree to that when they framed the Constitution? Is not that the principle on which all State governments are founded? When I look at the constitution of the State of New York I find it a government of majorities. If I look to the town and county governments, I find them governments of majorities; and, sir, if we have a national Government under our Constitution which, as I claim, is asupreme Government, that Government is a Government of majorities or pluralities, as fixed by our organic law.

Now, sir, for the purpose of perpetuating our institutions, those who framed the Constitution entered into a solemn compact and covenant that, with certain two exceptions, the people should have the right to change that organic law in every other respect whatever; and therefore when it appears to the people that there exists in this land an institution inconsistent with that Constitution, inconsistent with the principles of our Government, we, as their Representatives, say that we propose to them, in accordance with that Constitution, to determine for themselves whether or not they will amend it, and thereby remove the evil, there is nothing despotic, nothing wrong, nothing which should call forth the animadversions and maledictions of the honoroble gentleman from New Jersey, [Mr. Rogers.] In that we propose nothing which is not constitutional, nothing which is not just.

And 1 submit to my friends on the other side of the House that the day is come when they should act fearlessly and honestly upon this subject. Is there a gentleman there who does notbelieve that the American people in their majesty and in their power have decreed the absolute and perpetual annihilation of slavery? Has not the popular verdict, which went forth in November last, proclaimed that that is the unalterable decision of the American people? Is there one who will deny that the next Congress, which according to law will convene here one year from December, 1864, will possess the requisite power to pass the amendment now proposed and submit it to the people? Is there any one who does not know that it will be in the power of the President of the United States, whenever this proposition may be rejected by a vote of this House, to call within sixty days an extra session of that Congress? And although at large expense and at great annoyance to our people, the President can present this one question to their consideration and decision, and then by their act they can announce that this proposition shall be submitted to the vote of the American people.

Gentlemen may talk of slavery, and attempt to keep it in life and being. It is too late for that. This world moves. The American people have found that the institution of slavery is a great public evil and crime, and when this rebellion broke out and evinced its wicked design to overthrow the Governmentin orderthat slavery might be perpetuated they went to work with the determination that it should be extinguished. They entered upon the path of duty before them with the old motto of IIampden engraved upon their shield, u nulla vestigia retrosum —there is no step to be taken backward. We must go on for the very safety of our nation and of our people, until slavery is obliterated from our land. Then, and then only, shall we possess peace. Then, and then only, when that is a conceded fact, will the powers now in rebellion against the Government lay down their arms and submit to the just authority of the Federal Government.

Sir, this world is after all a progressive world. Its advances are slow butsure. Long before the days of Adam changes were going on, the records of which are to be found in the vestiges of races long since passed away. Age after age, era after era have swept onward each with its own order of organic life, flourishing, decaying, peiishing, pursuant to the inexorable law of development and progression, and the rocks alone by their fossil remains attest the strange creations of the past. We see evidences of progress in the institutions of society as well as in the physical world. The despotism and tyranny of old Governments and empires, and the barbaric customs of former generations, are passing away. Other institutions have succeeded, better but not yet perfect and these in turn must give way to the more beneficent and more perfect creations of a brighter future. And perhaps hereafter some explorer in our history shall find for the astonishment of his times, deep buried in the strata of political geology, a monster fossil more wonderful than the mastodon, and more terrible than the pterodactylus, which shall be recognized as the last vestige of African slavery.

We sir are improving, yet we are not perfect. It was not the design of the Creator that this world, either in its physical, in its moral, or in its political character, should assume perfection, except willuhe passing away of long ages. We have our work to do for this generation. Past generations have been building up their work for us; and, taking advantage of their advancements and of their improvements, we to day have our duty to perform in opening a wider pathway for civilization and for freedom.

I trust that gentlemen will regard this as no party question. U is with me a question of national life. 1 have no party feeling whatever in connection with this whole subject. Since the first gun was fired in the harbor of Charleston I have declared always that I would be governed by no political or partisan feeling until this rebellion shall be put down; and then, if it shall be the interest or the policy of the people to raise and to discuss party and political issues, let us meet those issues manfully, firmly, and as freemen. But until that time let us remember that we have sworn to support the Government of this Union. Having taken upon myself that oath, I mean to support it in its integrity, in its unity, in its power; and I care not what institution of the past or of the present may stand in the way of the maintenance of this Government, whether it be the institution of slavery, whether itbe party, oranything else, I stand pledged before Heaven to assist to the extent of my power in striking it down. Let us preserve that glorious heritage which our fathers gave us; and when we speak of civil liberty let it not be that which represents only the blood of a particular race; let it be that which represents man, no matter what land may have given him birth, no matter what may have been his political condition.

I am not, sir, one of those who believe that the emancipation of the black race is of itself to elevate them to an equality with the white race. I believe in the distinction of races coexisting in the providence of God for his wise and beneficent designs to man; but I would make every race free and equal before the law, permitting to each the elevation to which its own capacity and culture should entitle it, and securing to each the fruits of its own progression.

This we can do only by removingevery vestige of African slavery from the American Republic.

The SPEAKER, (after a pause.) Is the House ready for the question?

Mr. GRINNELL. I move that the House adjourn.

Mr. ASHLEY. Oh, no.

The SPEAKER. No gentleman rises to claim the floor.

Mr. HIGBY. Mr. Speaker

The SPEAKER. Does the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Grinnell] withdraw the motion to adjourn?

Mr. GPwINNELL. I withdraw the motion, and yield to the gentleman from California, [Mr. Higby.]

Mr. HIGBY. Mr. Speaker, the debate upon this question has taken a very wide range. Much of the ground that ^as occupied at the last session of Congress seems to have been swept over again at this session, as if to remind us of facts and arguments which we as Representatives may have forgotten, or which the people themselves may have lost sight of. Many gentlemen have overlooked in their remarks, and probably have forgotten, what has transpired between the last session of Congress and the present; thatthe policy pursued by the Administration has been indorsed by the vote of the people; that four hundred thousand majority of the votesof the people wasgiven to sustainthatpolicy; that theproclamationissued by thePresidentof theUnited States on thelstday of January, 1863, was indorsed as a part of that policy; that the action of Congress in reference to this question of slavery, since the beginning of the rebellion, was also indorsed; that the action of Congress at the last session m reference to this very subject was indorsed by the people in the reelection of, I believe, every member of the present House upon the Union side who was put in nomination. It will be borne in mind, sir, that at the last session the Senate by an overwhelming majority, far more than two thirds of that body, passed thesame jointresolutionthat isnowunder discussion; that though this resolution when it came to this body failed to receive a constitutional majority, yet there were nearly or quite thirty more voting in favor of its passage than those who voted against it. These facts were well understood by the people of the nation when they voted at the last election.

And, sir, not only that. The old question is reiterated as to whether we have power under the Constitution. We have heard it to day And what is a very singular fact is that those who cannot find power under the Constitution to authorize us to make this amendment come entirely from the free States of the Union, while the voice which comes up from the slave States, those who practically as well as constitutionally understand this question, is in favor of supporting the Union side of the House, and these men tell us that they are ready to favor the proposition of stripping from the Constitution anything that tolerates the institution of slavery in any State of the Union.

But, sir, I forbear to go into a lengthy argument. I forbear to reiterate here the arguments in favor of the abolition of slavery throughout the Union. Slavery has given usitslessons; they have been taught in slaughter and fiendish cruelty of every character. Indeed, no nation has suffered for its sins as we have done for slavery. "What to day has been laid upon the desk of every member shows us not only facts in reference to the treatment of our soldiers taken prisoners by the rebels, but there are pictorial illustrations of the men who were literally starved to death. These are only a few of the arguments which arise before us, and a few of the proofs which we have of the evil of slavery. I forbear to reiterate them all.

Mr. Speaker, I would not have risen to say anything on this question, but would have left it in the hands of others more familiar with it, if it had not been for the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Brooks,] who has a reputation for natural gifts and for varied learning, not only of books, but of countries through which he has traveled, and who is listened to always with great attention, but who is extreme and discuisivo on every subject he attempts to handle. In his thrust backward and forward with the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Scofiei Dj he could not refrain from crossing the continent and bringing in the State of California. New York and Pennsylvania could not settle their difficulty without bringing up something in reference to what transpired concerning California. The gentleman from New York iugged it in entirely out of place, and the singular fact was that he had to misrepresent the facts to prove his ease.

Mr. Speaker, in the course of his remarks in reply to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, the gentleman from New York spoke of an interview, or, at least, an exchange of words upon this floor he had with a member from Georgia, Mr. Toombs, and he stated that there was one question put to him which he was not able to answer. To understand what he did say, 1 ask the Clerk to read an extract from his speech.

The Clerk read as follows:

Not lias the South here in this Home and upon this floor alwav s had its way, even wish its able men. I was here in tin" great Mru iile of 18 10 when the ablest men of tlic fcsouthwere upon the fiom ut the adjoining flail exercising all their power to bring California Kilo the Union as n slave State, and to extend sluvviy to the Pacific; ami in that they failed. I recollect their ai uments I myself was engaged iu a vvaim debate on that subject with Mr. Toombs of Georgia; and in the course of the ai ument when iie was claiming that California should he open to tin: icpieM matjve and institutions oi Georgia and rjoutli Caioh na a* well a<- totbo e of New York, lie asked mo a question wlnel) I found it eanei to evade than to answer. Did not. lie a iced a regiment from New York city and a regiment fiotn South Carolina, iu the match from Vein Cruz to Mexico, at Cnapultepoe. 1 think lie smuI. fight ude by side and shoulder to .shoulder to conquer the Mexicans; and when the victory was won and the treaty made and the common territory acquired ioi which the e soldiers of New York and South Caiolum had fought and paid in common, was it, he a ked just tand light and equitable thatthe fcou of the South Carolina soldier, or that soldier himself, should he forbidden to eanguuc, carrying his institutions with hun, into California and the rest of the territory thus acquired, Mdo by side with the Citizen ot New York.' f evaded the question, I must confer, to the b«n of my ability. I found it difficult to answer. I an wcied it to the best ofmyabiiuy although notaltogether satisfactorily to m seJf

1 mention this incident, winch was hutoneofthemany incidents ot that gtcat and prolonged debate, during which the men of the North stood together, X think, for six month* upon the ilooi of the Hou of Representatives, contending and with gicat success lor the exclusion of slavery from California and from all the Pacific coast, and then the South fnUy and ably repieseuled here, never more ably sep cseiited than then. The North, and 1 among the jioithein Representative^, stood up shoulder to shoulder, and suecit5 iully too, lor we excluded slavery from Caiiioirua by its admission a? a free State. Slavery was forbidden by the compromise of 1850 to enter any of the territory which we acquired fiom Mexico on the Pacific coast."

Mr. HIGBY. Now, Mr. Speaker, a few facts. In 1849 and 1850 the people of California, under a. provisional governor, assembled and elected delegates to a convention. The day was fixed and the convention was held. The objectof that convention was to frame a constitution for the admissiorf of California into the Union as a State. After long and arduous labors that convention presented to the people a constitution for adoption, and let me say that in that convention there were men from the extreme South, men who are to day sympathizing with this rebellion, who were just as zealous opposers of the introduction of slavery as any man upon this floor to day and who in that convention labored to put down all arguments which could be raised in favor of its introduction. They presented a constitution which did not tolerate slavery, and the result was that the people adopted it and sent it to Congress, with Wright and Gilbert to this House, and Senatorselect to the Senate, for admission as a State under it into the Union.

If there was any question in regard to the institution of slavery in the introduction of California as a State, it arose here upon this floor, and in the other branch of Congress, and came not from any voice of the State of California. She was entirely free, and had driven slavery from the State and the Territory by the unanimous voice of the people. No Territory upon the Pacific coast was ever aided by act of Congress in getting rid of the institution of slavery. The gentleman altogether mistakes the facts, for it was he and those associated with him who raised the question. He misrepresents the facts, and misrepresents those who represented that State on this floor. The people of California owe him no thanks for what lie did ntthtt time in this House. The facts are quite the reverse of what he stated, for from what he says I take it that he and others were the parents of that infamous compromise which will always be a dark feature in American history.

The introduction of California as a State into the Union was connected with the passage of that most infamous law which we last session abolished so readily, and California could not come into the Union asafrecStatcunlessthat infamous law was placed upon the statute book and neither the gentleman from New York norany othergentleman associated with him upon this floor can take any credit to himself or place any laurels on his brow for what he did in that respect.

I rose more particularly to refute the statement of the gentleman, because when one stands upon this floor and makes a declaration asa fact in history, it is expected to go out to the people and be accepted by them unless it is refuted. Hence I assert distinctly that there was no division among the people on the Pacific coast upon this question of the institution of slavery.

And now I come back to the remarks of the gentleman from New York. He found the question was a difficult one to answer. The people of California were unanimous in their presentation of a constitution about which there could be no question as to its republicanism, for it was republican in ptincipleand republican in form; and yet when the gentleman from Georgia asks the gentleman from New York a question he answers it in his own way, but not satisfactorily to himself. Why, sir, when a man brought up in the light of every good principle, one who has lived all his life under their influence, one who could be so firm to the position which he occupied last session and occupies the present, one whose mind embraces such correct principles as he professes to possess, and such correct learning as he has received from year to year, can, now that he has arrived at ripe manhood, bccome so warped and perverted by the power of this institution that in the light of truth he cannot answer that simple question, I am furnished with the best evidence why the land should be rid of such an institution as that. It seems to me there should have been no difficulty in answeiing that question in the light of the fact that the people of the Pacific coast got rid of the institution for themselves; and yet m the face and eyes of the position which the gentleman takes here that the States are sovereign and can settle that question for themselves, when the gentleman from Georgia raises such a question he finds it extremely difficult to answer, and answers it not satisfactorily to himself.

Mr, Speaker, I leave the gentleman and envy him not all the fame he can acquire for himself by arguments of that character. 1 prefer to be upon the side of right and of truth, where I believe the people are likely to be when such powerful and fascinating influences as arise out of this institution are entirely removed. 1 hope we shall soon take a "vote upon this question, and that it will be a successful one; that there will be a two thirds vote in this House, and thatthe question will be sent to the States for them to take action upon, we well knowing, and the people well knowing, that the action we take upon the question here is not final, but that it must be ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the States. Then, if it shall so be that they ratify our action, that action will be a binding force and power upon us, become a part of the Constitution, and expel forever from the country the question which has been an apple of discord in our midst for half a century.

So far as the power which the North has had in this Government is concerned in regard to •which the gentleman claims that it has had the controlling power, I will leave him to settle that question with the vice president of the confederate States, Mr. Stephens, who reiterated in his speech in the Georgia convention which passed their ordinance of secession, that the South had held the power in this Government from its origin down to the time they were making their complaints. I leave it to the gentleman from New York, who was born, as he tells us, in a free State, whose State of adoption is a free State, and who never has had any direct interest in a slave State, to settle that question with Mr. Stephens, 1 think that the southern gentleman has given us facts that are true, while the gentleman from New York has been very much mistaken in the facts that he has attempted to present. And here I leave the question.

Mr. ASHLEY. If no othergentleman wishes to go on to night I desire to say that I will ask the House, perhaps on Monday evening, or on Tuesday morning at furthest, to sustain u motion for the previous question.

I now ask that certain amendments which the committee on the rebellious States propose to offer be ordered to he printed.

It was so ordered.

Mr. WILSON. I propose, when the bill comes before the House for consideration, to offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute. I ask that it may also be printed.

It was so ordered.