April 5, 1864

The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, resumed the consideration of the joint resolution (S. No, 1G) proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I am fully conscious, m rising to address the Senate, of the great importance of the measure to which I am about to speak. Indeed, in that respect it cannot be exaggerated. To manumit at once nearly four million slaves, who have been in bondage by hereditary descent during their whole lives, and who, because they were in bondage, and as one of the consequences of the condition in which they were placed, have been kept in a state of almost absolute ignorance, is an event of which the world s history furnishes no parallel. Whether if it succeeds it will be attended by weal or by woe, the future must decide. That it will not be followed by unmixed good or by unmixed evil, is perhaps almost certain; and the only question in my view that presents itself to statesmen is, first, whether the measure itself be right, independent Us consequpneesjand secondly, whether those consequences may be such as render it inexpedient, because inhuman in other particulars, to do what is right.

There was a period in our own time when there was but one opinion upon the question of right, or almost but one opinion upon that question. The men who fought through the Revolution, those who survived its peril and shared m its glory, and who were called to the Convention by which the Constitution of the United States was drafted and recommended to the adoption of the American people, almost without exception thought that slavery was not only an evil to any people among whom it might exist, but that it was an evil of the highest character, which it was the duty of all Christian people, if possible, to remove, because it was a sin as well as an evil.

I think the history of those times will bear me out in the statement that if the men by whom that Constitution was framed, and the people by whom it was adopted, had anticipated the times in which we live, they would have provided by constitutional enactment that that evil and that fc in should at some comparatively nnremote day be removed. During our colonial dependence, and immediately preceding the epoch when our fathers found it necessary to claim for themselves the freedom which was their right, one of their complaints against the Government from which they were about to disengage themselves was that that Government had, by its own power, and against the will of the colonies, brought Africans as slaves and settled them in the United States; and from the period that their numbers increased so as to promise a still greater increase, almost every man of reflection at that time who looked to the future was satisfied that sooner or later the country would, because of it, be involved in trouble; and they also fondly looked to the period, not only with hope, but evidently with confidence, when fromaconviction of thedanger as well as from a conviction of the sin of the institution, it would be removed. Without recurring to authority, the writings, public or private, of the men of that day, it is sufficient for my purpose to state what the facts will justify me in saying, that every man of them who largely shared in the dangers of the revolutionary struggle, and who largely participated in the deliberations of the Convention by which the Constitution was adopted earnestly desired, notonly upon grounds of political economy, not only upon reasons material in their character, but upon grounds of morality and religion, that sooner or later the institution should terminate. Its recognition in the Constitution, therefore, (for it is idle, as I think, to deny that it is there recognized,) the authority given by implication to a trade which might lead to its increase by immigration, was not because a large majority of the members of the Convention, and a large majority of the people of the United States in the mass favored the institution, but because they believed that without provisions of that description it would be difficult to have a Union adopted. Whether they were right or wrong, it is now useless to inquire. Judging by what was occurring at the time, it is possible, and perhaps even more than probable, that they were right; but if they made a mistake as to that fact, if the Union could have been adopted without the recognition of the institution in the Government which formed it, if its gradual extirpation could have been provided for, no one who is a spectator of the scenes around us will now fail to regret that it had not been done.

The opinion that I have, Mr. President, (and I only ask permission of the Senate to recur to it, not because it can have any influence except for the purpose of showing that that opinion has been uniform,) theopinion that I have of itnow I have entertained ever since I was capable in my own belief of forming a judgment upon human rights. But in the public situations in which I have been placed heretofore as well as in the one in which I now stand, I have deemed it my duty to recognize the binding and paramount authority of the Constitution, to yield my moral convictions to the obligation of that instrument, and not to esteem myself as excusable or justified in construing it by any views of morality which I mightentertam, or m construing out of it any provisions that might be found in it inconsistent with such views. I have therefore in the past when the subject has been before me for official action steadily maintained to the extent of whatever ability 1 might possess the binding authority of that instrument; and in what I am about to urge now in support of the measure which is upon your table, I am not departing from the conviction that that authority should be implicitly acquiesced in. I am about appealing to the authority of the Constitution itself as a justification for the vote which I shall give upon this measure. t

A word or two further by way of preliminary remark. My honorable friend who now presides over the body (Mr. Clark in the chair) thought proper, and with it I find no fault, to charge nearly all the calamities which the nation has sustained in the past, whatever these may have been, upon this institution. However, in my judgment, the present war might ha e been avoided by a different course of public policy and of popular sentiment from that which has prevailed, and however satisfied I may be oi am that at least during our turns, the existence of the present generation, it might have been avoided if a different policy had been adopted, I am satisfied now and 1 was satisfied throughoutail the contests in which that question has been presented, that sooner or later the presentcondition of things was inevitable or something nearly like that. If there be justice in God s providence, if we are at liberty to suppose that Fie will abandon man and his rights to their own fate, and suffer their destiny to be worked out by their own means and with their own lights, I never doubted that the day must come when human slavery would be exterminated by a convulsive effort on the part of the bondsmen, unless that other and better reason and influence which might bring it about should be successful—the mild though powerful influences of that higher and elevated morality which the Christian religion teaches. I concurred and concur still in the judgment of the great apostle of American liberty, the author of that Declaration which is to live through all time as the Magna Charta of human rights, that in a contest between the slave to throw off his thralldom and the master who holds him to it, the God of justice could take no part in favor of the latter. And as I have said to the Senate already, and alluded to it on a former occasion, my opinion upon the institution is not now for the first time announced.

i participated in a debate in this body in 1847, when Mr. Calhoun was one of its leading spirits, a man of almost unparalleled ability, weakened, if weakened at all in its actual exercise, only by its acuteness. He tried to satisfy the Senate, as I have no doubt he had satisfied himself by his own sophistry, that republican freedom and human African slavery could only exist together, and he proclaimed his devotion to the Union and to the principles of the Constitution upon the ground that those principles recognized the existence of human slavery, and by its recognition enabled republican Government to stand. In replying to that truly great man—and in all the relations of life, at least in all the relations of private life, most excellent man expressed views which, with the permission of the Senate, I will now read. Having in the course of the debate denied the authority of Congress to annex to a territorial bill what was called the Wilmot proviso, and, under the then condition of the country, if the authority existed, the expediency of annexing it, (from which it might have been inferred, if I had stopped there, that I concurred in the remarks of the honorable Senator, and that! was one of the southern men who departing from the teachings of their fathers, had become a convert to tiie institution itselfas one not only warranted morally but guarantied almost as a religious institution,) I said:

"•Having expressed tin* opinion, it is due to rnysHf, and to convictions long and unalterably fixed, to state the opinion I entertain upon the institution of slavery ut rU I have no opinion which J wit h to conceal upon any question, whether it an e prematurely or not, if it does au*<\ f believe, and have ever believed >mce I was capable of thought, that it is a great affliction to any country where it pie vails; and, ^o believing, 1 can never vote for any measure calculated to enlarge it* area, or f<> render more permanent Us duration. In some latitudes, and for some agricultural staple*-, slave labor may be, to the nw t r the most valuable species ot labor, though this I greatly doubt. Xu others, and particularly in my own State, i am convinced that it is the v< r> doare st species of labor; and m all, as far as national wealth and power and hdppmps« are concerned, i am persuaded it admits of no comparison with the labor of freemen and, above all, disguise it as we may, if the laws of population f shall not be changed by Providence, or man s nature shall not be changed, it is an institution, sooner or later, pregnant with learlul peril. Jt is unncees sary and would be improper to enlarge on such a topi* 1 u my own State, sir, I am «ati«fi d that, but for the movements of political abolitionists, slavery would scarcely now have existed. The current ot public opinion was all setting toward its gradual extinction. Law* were passed to encourage and facilitate manumission, but these movements have changed this opinion, and caused laws to be modified, almost to the, prohibition of freedom. il Tile opinion hold upon this institution is not nowfor the fir jt tune formed or expieuscu by a southern man. The history of out eomitiy proves tin*. At the period of the Ueclaiation ot our Indf pendence—at the period of the adoption of the on Million—i here was but one sentiment upon the subject among enlightened southern statesmen. What J. have t asd wiij, on every proper occasion, more forcibly said by them, and, as foremost among them, by Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madt on and, as far a? I know, their opinion was ever unchanged.( do most earnestly hope, therefore, and I believe that if the South is left to itself—if the North does not interfere with us—before a century shall have passed, slavery will ciM c to exist by gradual and peaceful emancipation, and as it* consequence, by increasing, instead of dfimni lung the wealth and power oi the .States where u now prevails.

"After having said this much, it Is hardly necessary to say that I differ with the honorable Senator from South Carolina as to the conservative influence of slavery upon our free political m mution s I do not hold with him that they depend in any degree upon the existence of slavery. If I did, I should value tneni infinitely le s than r do. in my judgment, they rest upon the virtue and intelligence of the people, acid have (heir firmest support in the blessings which they impart —Con re sionai Globe, Twenty Ninth Congress, second session, p. 654.

With these impressions, Mr. President, I am called upon to decide for myself what is best to be done to get rid of an institution so pregnant with mischief, so full of peril. I shall not stop to inquire, as I intimated just now, whether it has produced the war or not. One thing, in my judgment, is perfectly clear, now that that war is upon us, that a prosperous and permanent peace can never be secured if the institution is permitted to survive; and will it notsurvive unless a measure like that upon your table shall receive the sanction which t he Constitution requires? That brings me to inquire into the legality an f the effect of the other means by which it is proposed to get rid of it. The honorable member from Ohio, [Mr. Sherman,] if I understood him correctly, in thespeech made some weeks since to which we all listened with so much pleasure, and for myself with so much instruction, seemed to consider itas within the power of Congress by virtue of its legislative authority. There are many well judging men, with the President at their head, who seem to suppose that it is within the reach of the Executive; while, on the contrary, there are. some among us who express the opinion that it is not within the scope of either executive or legislative authority or of constitutional amendment. In my judgment, it can only be effected in the latter mode; but before I proceed to the consideration of the questions which belong to that particular inquiry, I will address myself to the other two ways by which it is maintained by some that the end may be accomplished.

First, can it be accomplished by the President? Hq does not claim for himself—he has not gone to that extent—the authority to abolish slavery except as an incident of the military power with which in the state of civil war in which we are engaged he is vested as Commander in Chief of the Army. He maintains that it is a power incident to that command; and the honorable member from Ohio (for the remark is equally applicable to this ground of power as well as to the legislative ground of power) takes apparently the same view. lie told us—and in the statement he was partly correct, but for his purpose as I think, substantially wrong—that the Supreme Court of the United States at the last term had decided that there existed between the seceding States and the United States a condition of war which gave to the United States find thesecedingStatesasagainst each other all the belligerent rights which belonged to n state of war existing internationally. 1 think I speak it advisedly when I state that the Supreme Court, whatever may have been their language, designed laying down no such proposition. They asserted, what cannot be denied, because your own legislation had recognized its existence, and because the fact, independent of that recognition, was apparent, thata state of war did exist; that the insurrection, however it might, in the first instance, have been arrested by means of the mere civil power of the Government, had culminated to a point which placed it beyond the reach of that power, and beyond the reach of any other power but the power of war with which the GovernmcntoftheUnitcd States is clothed; butin so saying they only meant for the purpose of the particular cases which were before them, and in regard to the pai ticular questions presented by those cases, to rely upon the belligerent rights growing outof that condition of things in ordertojustify the conclusion to which they came, that goods captured upon the high seas abroad from the territorial limits of the seceded States were to be considered as prize of warand to be determined by the principles applicable to prize law as known to the law of nations. But tft so saying, and in meeting the objection that although in one sense it was a war, yet in another sense it was a mere rebellion in which each one of the parties concerned in the seceded States was committing from day to day, and as often as he denied the authority of the United States and attempted to maintain his denial by force of arms, treason, they said that these parties were not the less to be considered as enemies because they were traitors.

The Supreme Court never pretended and never intimated, as i read their opinion, that the existence of that belligerent relation terminated all the civil obligations which the citizens of the seceded States were under to the Government of the United States; but, on the contrary, announced it as the inevitable inference from the statement which I have just made, that in their view they were enemies although traitors; that although they were enemies, they were not less so because they were traitors; that in point of fact, as the parties then stood, there was due from each one of the citizens or inhabitants of the seceded States an allegiance and an obligation to fulfill it, and of course to observe the laws and yield to the authority of the United States, which, at the end of the war, if that end should be so successful as to reinstate the Government of the United States in authority, might proceed against them under the laws of the land as traitors, and in the sense of the Constitution which defined the crime of treason.

It would be monstrous, Mr. President, as 1 think, if it were otherwise. There are now think the number has been lessened, and it is due to truth as I think, so to state, by the policy which has been adopted in the prosecution of the war—but there are now in the rebellious States hundreds and thousands of citizens just as devoted to the Union as any member of the Senate, and just as anxious to see its authority restored as any member of this body. These are entitled, therefore, to the protection of the Government. Their obedience in point of fact and their ostensible obedience to the eye to the power which is around them, in itself a Government de facto, is an obedience which they have no powerto resist, and upon the well established principles of the laws of nations is an obedience in which there is no crime.

All that the Executive can do as the head of the military in this war is to be derived, and to be derived exclusively, from what is called the war power. The bringing into existence that power practically is a matter for Congress. The President may, in the absence of an act of Congress declaring war, wage a war of self defense may receive war tendered by another nation before Congress shall recognize it. That was done in the case of the Mexican war. All that Congress did by the act which they passed in 1846, after the first battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, was to recite, in the act of Congress which provided for the increase of the Army, and appropriated a sum sufficient for that purpose, the existence as a fact of the war brought about by the action of Mexico. The war power, therefore, is m the Congress of the United States, subject to their control, and the power of the President of the United States, consequent upon the existence of a war in point of fact, as a power derived from his rightand constitutional authority to command the armies of the United States, as far as a question of this description is concerned, is a power limited from day to day by the progress which the war may make.

If it be true— and I shall not stop to inquire-— that it is a legal exercise of a belligerent right to manumit the slaves of the enemy, one thing is perfectly certain as a proposition equally applicable to a civil war, which in this aspect, with reference to the power which it confers on the President, stands precisely in the condition in which his power stands in the case of an international war, that he has no practical power to effect the manumission of slaves belonging to the enemy where he has not the physical power to attain that result. To proclaim freedom in Washington, or to proclaim it upon the confines of loyal territory before your armies have marched at all toward the subjection of the rebellion, toward the conquest of the foe, of itself operates nothing. The President never uttered a truth more absolutely sound than when he stated that a proclamation of manumission or of freedom could have just as much effect upon the slaves of the enemy as a popish bull would have upon the course of a comet. All, therefore, in my view, that can be accomplished by means of presidential power derived from his being by the Constitution placed at the head of the armies of the United States in this war is, that if he can get, the slave under the control of the Union he can manumit him.

Slaves are property in one sense. No one, I think, can deny that. That is to say, by the laws of the States where the institution exists they are property; and with reference to such laws there is no distinction at all between that species of property and any other species of chattel property. Everything that can be done in regard to every other species of property can be done in regard to this. That being the case, if the Presidentof the United States, by proclamation, can, by force of that proclamation alone, strike the chains from the limbs of these poor bondmen, take from the parties who are entitled to hold them the property which by the laws of the States they have in them, he can, by proclamation operating propria vigorc, take any other species of property and appropriate it to the use of the United States without going within the limits of the rebellious States. Nobody, I suppose, will contend that that can be done.

In my view, therefore, it is just as futile, just as idle to seek to emancipate the slaves in the seceding States by means of a proclamation with which the armies of the United States do not march from day to day, and practically execute by getting possession and control of the slaves, as it would be, futile and idle, if, by a proclamation, the President of the United States was to declare that all the soldiers in arms against the United States should be considered as captives. Whatever authority, therefore, may be the result of the war power with which the President is clothed it is an authority limited by the actual physical war power which he is exercising under the authority of the war power.

If these slaves come to the standard of the United States, or if that standard is carried within the territorial limits of the foe and the slaves are there within its control, discharged actually from the domination of their masters, the proclamation which declares them free may, and I am inclined to think will, have that effect. But just as sure as anything in the future can be said to be sure, is it, in my judgment, that if the war was to terminate to day or whenever it shall terminate, without any provision being made for the condition of the slaves who have not come within the actual control of the military authority of the United States, they will be decided by the courts of the United States to be slaves still.

It is evident that the tendency of the President s own mind led to that result. In his proclamation of amnesty he says, I do not mean by the terms which 1 offer to you of the rebellious States to announce for myself that your slaves have been emancipated by force of any proclamation which I may have issued I think that that will be the result; f think the proclamation may have an effect coextensive with your entire territory; that every slave within the limits of the seceding States, whether they have actually come or may come within the authority of the United States or not, will be, by force of that proclamation, made a free man; but when I offer to you an amnesty, coupled with the condition that you are to support not only the Constitution of the United States and the laws made in pursuance of the Constitution by Congress, but that you are to support any proclamations that may have been or may hereafter be issued by the Executive from time to time, I am willing that you shall take that oath subject to the right uf having that question decided judicially in the future. He, therefore, by the very terms of his amnesty evidently considered that it will be a question not deouhd if these rebels shall return, will be open for content; that he is willing, and he invokes them to come to the same mode of having the question decided finally, that it shall be decided as a judicial question by the courts who may have jurisdiction over it in the future. In that, I think, he was right. In the belief that the coui ts will so decide in the future, I think he is wrong with reference to that class of slaves who, if the war was to terminate to day will, in my judgment, be entirely unaffected by the proclamation and still as much slaves under the Constitution as they were slaves before the rebellion was instituted.

Mr. President, if I am right in thinking "that the object cannot be attained by means of the presidential war power

Mr. FESSENDEN. Will my friend allow me to ask him a question? I do it simply because I wish to have his ansverfor my owninformation.

Mr. JOHNSON. Certainly.

Mr. FESSENDEN. What would be the effect of the proclamation, in his judgment, upon a territory not in the possession of the Government or of our Army at the time the proclamation was issued, but which, after that time, should come into our possession, so that the slaves within that territory would be under the immediate control of the Government or the Army?

Mr. JOHNSON. A Territory not a State at the time?

Mr FESSENDEN I am speaking of territory generally; a portion of the country, part of a State, if you please, which comes into our military possession after the issuing of the proclamation.

Mr. JOHNSON. What I intended to say (and I am glad that my honorable friend has put his inquiry to me) was, that in my view—and I state it with all the deference for the opinion of others which I sincerely entertain the rebellion was terminated to-morrow, and the authority of the United States was reinstated in every one of the States now in rebellion, the proclamation would have no influence at all upon the status of those bondsmen who were not brought antecedently under the influence and control of the military power.

Mr. FESSENDEN. Antecedently to the proclamation?

Mr. JOHNSON. Antecedently to the proclamation. I am speaking of the proclamation.

Now, a word or two only in reply to my honorable friend from Ohio, [Mr. Sherman.] He seems to think the objectcan be accomplished by means of the legislative war power, so to term it. In my judgment the difficulties

Mr. FESSENDEN. Did the honorable Senator understand me? I wish to know whether I understand him. Suppose, by way of illustration, that before the rebellion ended we should overrun the State of Georgiaand that State should be within our military possession, so that every slave was in our possession, would those slaves be free in consequence of the proclamation if nothing further was done?

Mr. JOHNSON. If there is a right to emancipate slaves as a belligerent right, upon which I express no opinion. Mr. Adams, in his controversy with England, as I am sure the honorable member will recollect have got the State Papers before me—took the broad ground that the state of war did not authorize a belligerent to emancipate the slaves of his enemy. I am not here to maintain or to deny the existence of that right. I rather incline to the opinion that Mr. Adams was wrong, and that the opinion which he subsequently expressed in a debate in the House of Representatives, I think in 1836, that slavery might be abolished by means of the war power in a certain state of things was the better opinion. But that is a question full of difficulty.

Mr. COWAN. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question?

Mr. JOHNSON. Certainly.

Mr. COWAN. The question decided by Mr. Adams was that, according to the terms of international law, one belligerent had no right to free the slaves of another. That is neither here nor there as to the question I am about to put, and it is this: suppose that by virtue of the paramount authority of the United States requiring citizens of the several States for mihtai y set vice, she were to disturb for a time tiic relation which existed between the parent and child, the master and his apprentice, but notdisturbitlongenough to cover the whole period of the tutelage or apprenticeship; what would be the effect afterwards upon the discharge of the mmoror the apprentice from military service? Would he fall backagain into his natural place underthemaster orundertheparent as before? Is there any authority in this Government to prevent that return to his original status of owing service either to the masterorthe parent?

Mr. JOHNSON. If the honorable member from Pennsylvania will excuse me, instead of anticipatmg what I propose to say on that question, I will give an answer to him when I come to that part of the discussion to which I suppose the question properly belongs.

Mr. Adams, in one of his dispatches which he sent to the President of the United States on the 22d of August, 1815, said, speaking of the taking by the British of our slaves and discharging them: We considered them a? deviations from the usages, of war. Our object was the restoration of all property, including felavt s which bj the usage* of war among cm].zed 1 nation?- ought not to have been taken Slaves Veie considered pnvate property. Ali private property on shore was of tint description." It was entitled by the laws of war to exemption from capture."

Mr. SUMNER. If I can have the attention of the Senator for one moment just on that point, I would remind him that Mr. Adams on at least one occasion in the House of Representatives made the statement that he wrote dispatches, as Secretary of State, under the direction of the President, in which he himself did not concur: in writing them he simply held the pen. He did not say that that was one of the dispatches; but he did on an important occasion make that statement; and, as the Senator well knows, on three different occasions in the House of Representatives he undertook to state his own individual views on that precise question.

Mr. JOHNSON. I am aware of that, sir. I do not know that the remark attributed no doubt correctly attributed Mr. Adams had application to this particular subject. From what I had the honor to know of the character of that statesman I more than doubt whether it had. If there was any man in this land or in any other land who was devoted to human liberty more than any other, it was Mr. Adams.

Mr. DAVIS. Will the honorable Senator permit me to ask him a question? Will he give the Senate the date of that dispatch of Mr. Adams, from whence it was written, and to whom it was directed?

Mr. JOHNSON. I thought I did give the date,

Mr. DAVIS. You did, but I wish you would give it again.

Mr. JOHNSON. It is dated on the 22d of August, 1815.

Mr. DAVIS. Where is the dispatch dated?

Mr. JOHNSON. From London, where he was then minister.

Mr. DAVIS. Then instead of being written under the direction of the President, it was written on- the other side of the Atlantic to the President.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes; but he may have had instructions from the President about it, notwithstanding.

Mr. SUMNER. It might have been written in London, but it was addressed to the British Government.

Mr. DAVIS. I read very carefully the debate to which the Senator alluded, in which Mr. Adams made his declaration. I was present and heard it. It does not accord with my recollection that in relation to that dispatch Mr. Adams made the explanation to which the Senator alludes.

Mr. SUMNER. The Senator will understand I do not say that he did mention this dispatch. He said that it had been his fortune in public life to hold the pen in order to state a case in which he did not concur.

Mr. DAVIS. I will suggest that we all let the honorable Senator from Maryland alone and let him finish his speech in his own way, and then such gentlemen as choose to notice it can notice it in their way.

Mr. JOHNSON. If the Senate will acquiesce in the suggestion of my friend from Kentucky they will personally oblige me, that is, that these questions shall be put after I shall have concluded my remarks, and I will endeavor to answer them if I can, rather than that they should be interposed in the course of my argument. To carry on a running fight with three or four Senators on the other side is rather more than I am equal to. I was about to say that from my knowledge of Mr. Adams, independent of the testimony which is certainly pregnant with information on the subject to which the Senator from Kentucky refers, I do not believe any man in the world could have got him to announce any principle as a principle of national law that would prove practically injurious to human freedom. He not only announced the doctrine for which I refer to his dispatch of 1815, but when the subject of the obligation of England under the treaty of Ghent to pay for the slaves which her navy had taken off was referred to the arbitrament of Russia in his correspondence as Secretary of State to our minister at St. Petersburg he took the same ground in even stronger terms; that is to say, that there was no belligerent right to emancipate the slaves of an enemy.

My friend from Maine [Mr. Fessendesf] is under the impression that I did not understand his inquiry. I did; and it would be my fault if I did not, because he always puts his points so as to make them clear almost to the dullest com pre* hension. His inquiry was, supposing the proclamation of emancipation to be inoperative upon such of the States as were not at the time within the military possession of* the United States, although it is dated at a long; antecedent period to subsequent military possession, whether, if that subsequent military possession is acquired while the proclamation remains unrevoked, the proclamation will not be as operative upon the slaves within the territory, the possession of which is thus subsequently acquired, as it would have been if it had been in our possession at the date of the proclamation? It think it will; but still, although 1 confess the leaning of my opinion, after a good deal of reflection, is to the affirmative of the inquiry, 1 am not to be understood as holding the very positive opinion thatthatproclamation would be operative. My impression is that a would be. I think that the view taken by Mr. Adams, in the House of Representatives, on the occasion adverted to by the Senator from Massachusetts, is the sounder opinion. I believe that it is the rightful exercise of a belligerent power to emancipate the slaves of the enemy, if we can get possession of them, just as it is a rightful exercise of a belligerent right to take any other property belonging to the enemy, which may be taken under the civilized rules of modern warfare, or as it is a belligerent right to capture any other person of the enemy.

Now, Air. President, a word or two upon that subject before I leave it. I have had occasion more than once to say—and that opinion I confidently entertain—that although by the laws of the States, Africans are made property, under the Constitution of the United States they are, with reference to the war power of the Government, persons, may be used as persons, brought into the field 10 maintain the authority of the Government, to which as p< rsons they owe allegiance, if they are persons .--object to our military control, if they are persons adding to our military power, they are for the same reasons persons under the military control of the foe, and may increase the military power of the foe; and they are just as much within the control of the United States as any other thing m the possession of the enemy which may be used advantageously by the enemy m carrying on the war against the United States.

I was about to say a word ot two upon the second head, the legislative power, on which my friend from Ohio [Mr. Sukrmav] more or less relied. If im true that the Congress of the United States by the Constitution is clothed with an authority to declare war; and it is maintained that under the authority to declare war slaves may be emancipated. That may be tine; but it may not be true so as to do away with the necessity of the measure upon your table. They may he emancipated, quo mvdo? The power, like whatever emancipating power the PicMilent may be clothed with umh r lua authority as Commander m Chtef executing the war power, is limited by the p«actic nl exercise of that war power, liow far do your troops go? Against whom are they fighting? My friend from Ohio, as 1 understood him,' seemed to suppose—and that is the view, i think, oi one of the measures ontemplated by the honorable member from Massachusetts Congress can by law not only manumit slaves in the seceded States, but slaves in every State.

Now, first, as to the seceded States, how is it to bo accomplished by legislative authority under the war power, except as subject precisely to the same limitation with which itean be accomplished by tiie Piestdeutiuuler theauthonty of the same power, that portion of it which by the Constuu-; tion is intrusted to him? Can Congress by an[ act of its legislation declare all the slaves in the seceded States fiec, and if peace is made to mor row and the independence of those States is recognized, will they he f ee I suppose nobody will contend that; and yet it to make them bee is a paw of the legislative power of the Government it operates at once; and m point of law, should there beany tribunal who will decide upon the principle of law and justice, slavery will have been ended in every State, although we never should reinstate the authority of the United States, but on the contrary the rebels should achieve their independence. I suppose nobody will pretend that that would be the resuitof a measure of that description; and if not, why not? If theauthonty to emancipate is in the Constitution now and operates now, they are free the very moment you exert the authority. Power may bring them back to slavery; or rather power may deny their freedom; the violence which brought their ancestors from their native home may be renewed; but in the eye of justice, in the judgment of every enlightened tribunal, if in point of legal operation a law passed now operates of itself to emancipate them all, although we should terminate disgracefully the war to-morrow by recognizing the independence of those States, all the slaves within the limits of those States would be free. If they would not be free—and I imagine my friend from Ohio will admit that it would not be so in point of law, as we know it would not be in fact—if they would not be free by theexercise of the legislative power in that mode, then there is a limitation of that power when exerted by the Legislature, as well as a limitation upon it when that portion of it with which the Constitution clothes the President is exerted by the President; and what limitation is that? The limitation of actual physical military power. Get the slaves under the protection of your standard, and if you think proper then is the time, (and before then you are impotent to accomplish it,) make them free; but until then the effort to accomplish it by the mere exercise of legislative authority, in my judgment is just as futile as the effort to accomplish it by the mere exercise of executive authority.

Thatis notall. In order to gain the end which, in common with a majority of the Senate, I have at heart, the abolition of slavery by means of the exercise of this legislative war power, my friend must go a step further and show that it is a power which may be exerted over the loyal as well as the disloyal States. "Will that proposition bear examination? The Constitution of the United States, as we all know, in a state of peace gives no power to any branch of the Government of the United States to interfere with slavcryiu the States A few wild men carried away by some loose and undefined notions of human liberty with which the Constitution does not deal, think that they find m the principles of the Declaration of independence and m the great principles whi« h were the object for establishing the Constitution of the United States, principles so inconsistent with human slavery that the Constitution not only does authorize c the legislative department of the Government to put an end to it, but makes that the duty of the Government; or rather, that it is so inconsistent with the principles upon which the Govei nnieii t is founded that the judiciary, ifcalled upon to .decide, will decide that there can be no human slavery. I will not stop to examine that. I assume what, with the exception ot a few poisons to whom I have just alluded, has been the universal opinion—the opinion pionounccd by the convention which nominated the present incumbent of the presidential chair, over and over again announced on the floor of Congress, announced upon the floor of Congress by overwhelming majorities since this rebellion commenced—that with the existence of human slavery in the States, the Constitution of the United States in a time of peace has nothing whatever to do. If it has not, and I admit, for argument s sake, or as I think is the law, that in time of war the Government of the United States may in a certain condition of things e Tt ct the object of freeing slaves, putting an end to the institution under the military power, it can only be in those cases and against those people against whom they have a right to exert thenpower. Hccauseone ormoic States have seceded and have carried their secession to an extent that they have become belligerents in a certain sense toward the United States, what right have the United States, in the exercise of the power which they are authorized to wield for the purpose of putting down the rebellion and lemsiatsng the authority of the Government, to interfere with the loyal States of Maryland, or Kentucky, or Missouri? Have they any right to declare war upon Maryland, orupon euherof the other States that I have named? Certainly not; and if so far from having theauthority to carry on war against a loyal State, they are carrying on the war against the disloyal States by means of the power of the loyal States, including Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, it is a contradiction in terms that in the exercise of that war power they can, as --against themselves, against the loyal States, exert an authority incident alone to the war power, when the war power itself is applicable alono to a state of

In my view, then, Mr. President, without troubling the Senate further upon these two heads of inquiry, what we seek, or what I wish to have done, slavery abolished, cannot be done in either of those two modes. Then there is another, an amendment to the Constitution. Now it is said it cannot be done in that mode. The honorable member from Kentucky [Mr. Davis] if 1 understood him correctly in the very elaborate speech which he delivered upon the subject a few days since, full of all the learning which belongs to the question and pregnant with a very ingenious application of that learning, seems to think that there is something in the admitted sovereignty of the States which is inconsistent with the authority of the people of the United States to amend the Constitution so as to trench at all upon the existing authority of the States. The honorable member from Delaware [Mr. Saulsbury] takes another ground, and that is, that as slaves are made property by the laws of the States, that property, like every other description of property, is not the subject of Government interference, except as that interference may be necessary for its protection. Now, a word or two upon each objection.

The honorable member from Kentucky is right in saying that in a certain sense the States are sovereign; but if he means by that to say that the United States in another sense are not equally sovereign, he is mistaken. The school of which Mr. Calhoun was the head, and the antecedent school by whose teachings he professed to be governed, that which had for its head Mr. Madison, seemed to have been under the impression, and unfortunately succeeded in inculcating it upon the public mind too strongly for the peace of the country, the safety and prosperity of his own section, that the only sovereignty was that which belonged to the States. There never was a greater political heresy. The States in the first place were never disunited. As one they declared independence. As one they fought and conquered the independence so declaied. As one, in orderto make that independence fruitful of all the blessings which they anticipated from it, they made the Constitution of the United States. The Articles of Confederation suddenly prepared were found during the war, and for three or four years subsequent to the war, to be not only not suited to the purposes of the men by whom those Articles were agreed upon, but to be destructive of the very purposes for which our fathers fought and bled and triumphed in establishing their independence. They met in convention they adoptedihe Constitution in convention, and recommended it not to the States in the capacity of States, not to the governments of the States as governments, but to the people of the States for their adoption; and they could have submitted it in no other way. Any other mode of laying it before the country would have been inconsistent with the preamble to the instrument, which states that it is the work of the people as contradistinguished from the States. How the people were to assemble, where they were to assemble, what influences were to govern them in deciding for oragainst the Constitution, is immaterial. When they once decided in its favor, the people of each State agreed as a people with the people of every other State that that should be the form of Government. They consented in adopting the Constitution as a people. that the Constitution, if adopted by the people of nine States, should be the Constitution of the people of those States m the aggregate.

So said the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of McCulloch vs. The State of Maryland m the opinion given by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall. So said the same court in the opinion given, and it was the unanimous opinion, in the case of Booth vs. The United States by the present Chief Justice. They both announced as the clear operation of the Constitution and as a fact ever to be borne m mind in construing the Constitution of the United States, that it was the adoption of the people of the United States, and that the sovereignty of the United States to the extentof the powers conferred upon the Government of the United States and the sovereignty conferred upon the governments of the States by the people of the States respectively, was precisely the same and no more than it would have been if they had been framed and adopted at the same time. That is to say, each State, except so far as the people as a people had gone with other people in depriving themselves of the powers with which they were antecedently clothed, had no authority, as long as that other Constitution remained, to take any step inconsistent with the powers conferred by that Constitution; or, hi the language of the court, that each, within the sphere of the authority with which it was clothed, was supreme. There was no absolute sovereignty; that is to say, there was no sovereignty coextensive with the whole scope of political power belonging to the government of either; but each was invested with a portion of the sovereignty which the people might create, and each therefore within the extent of the poi lion allowed it was to the extent of that portion supreme.

That being the case, what is there in the objection suggested by the honorable member from Kentucky that the States are sovereign? The answer to it is, so is the United States, and so were the people of the United States when they adopted the Constitution of the United States. What they have done is, except in the mode pointed out by the Constitution, irrevocably done, unless there should occur a state of things m which that other and paramount right, never recognized by constitutionsof government comes into existence, the right of vindicating the rights conferred by the existing Government against oppression and tyranny—the 1 iglu of i revolution. There is a letter have it not by me now—written in 1833 by Mr. Madison to Mr. Webster, found in the first volume of Mr. Webstei s works, the edition by Mr. Everett, and m the biography prefix* d to that edition, which states, as I think \ei y clearly as he ever stated any proposition before him, the character of the two Governments. Mi*. Calhoun professed to follow the teachings of 17U8 and Madison as at the head of the school by whom the doctrines uf were taught. Madison, however, the founder of the school, so to speak, denounced the conduct of South Caiolmaas utterly inconsistent with the principles of the school of 1798 and in theletterto which I aliuderomphmented Mr. Webster upon his speech m answer to Mr. Calhoun, as a triumphant vindication of the true nature of the Government, and as demolishing, m his judgment, forever the frightful and unconstitutional heresy of nullification and secession.

Mr. President, if the people of the United States when they assembled together m their several States and adopted the Constitution of tiie United States were supreme, then it was their right and nobody else s right to pi ov ule how long the Government should last, whether t should be changed at all, and if changed how changed. They did provide. They were too wise not to know m advance that the circumstances of the country might change; the Constitution as it was then, admirably suited in their judgment to the wants of the people as they were, might prove inadequate to its cherished end; and they therefore provided by the fifth article of the Constitution for the amendment of the instrument itself, and placed the whole instrument subject to the pow r of amendment with exceptions, the exception as to the abolition of the slave trade until 1808, and the exception as to the taxing and representative clauses; but everything else was made subject to amendment in the way pointed out by the article, and the article goes on to declare that when amended in the mode so pointed out the amendment shall to all intents and purposes be a part of the Constitution, and of course be as valid as if, instead of coming into the Constitution hereafter by way of amendment, it was incorporated in the Constitution itself as it was originally adopted. Now, a word or two in answer to the honorable member from Delaware. lie says that this measure cannot he constitutionally adopted, because the subject with which it deals, if i understand him, is not a subject for political action. That would be singular.

Mr. SAULSBURY. The Senator will pardon me for interrupting him. lie will find no such remai k m any thing that I said as that the subject was not a subject of political government. I admit that it is a very proper subject for State political government; but I deny the authority of thi ee fourths of the States to take action to abolish slavery in the remaining States, or to destroy property, to say what shall or what shall not be property, because thatdoes not come within the scope, purposes, and objects that the framoiw of the Constitution, and those who formed the Union, had in making the Constitution. That is the position I have taken.

Mr. JOHNSON. I may have expressed myself inaccurately for the purpose of conveying my own understanding of what the honorable member said; but I did understand him precisely as he has stated now. He says that, with reference to the Constitution of the United States, the institution of slavery is not within the amendatory clause, because, with reference to the Government of the United States, it is not a subject for political interference. Let me ask the honorable member, and he can answer it hereafter if he thinks proper, could human slavery have been abolished by the Constitution originally? [suppose no one will doubtthat. If the framersof the Constitution had put a clause in it that slavery should not exist, that it should go out of existence at once, or go out of existence at any period thereafter, instantaneously or gradually, would anybody doubt that it would have been legally operative? Certainly not. If it would have been within the power of the people of the United States, acting precisely in the mode in which they acted in adopting the Constitution as it is, to have provided by an express article for the termination of human slavery, why is it that it cannot be done by them now under the clause which gives to the people of the United States the authority to amend the Constitution? 11can only be, not thathuman slavery is not in itself an object of government; that the honorable member admits not to be the case; it is not because it was not an object ofgovernment in 1789; but that it has been taken entirely out of the scope of governmental power, the scope of the political power of the people, because it was not abolished by the Constitution. Why, Air. President, what saysthe preamble to the Constitution?

Remember, now the question is, can that institution which deals with humanity as property, which claims to shackle the mind, the soul, and the body, which brings to the level of the brute a portion of the race of man, cease to be within the reach of the political power of the people of the United States, not because it was not at one time within their power, but because at that time they did not exert the power? What says the preamble? How pregnant with a conclusive answer is tiie preamble to the proposition that slavery cannot be abolished! What does that preamble state to have been the chit f objects that the great and wise ami good men had at heart in recommending the Constitution with that preamble to the adoption of the Atnei ican people? That justice might be established; that tranquillity might be preserved; that the common defense and general welfare might be maintained; and, last and chief of all, that liberty might be secured. Is there no justice in putting an end to human slavery? Is there no danger to tin1 tranquillity of the country in its existence? May it not inteifcrc with the common defense and general welfare? And, above all, is it consistent with any notion which the mind of man can conceive of human liberty? The very clause under which we seek to put an end to the institution, the amendatory clause, may have been and in all probability was inserted info the instrument from a conviction that the time would come when justice would call so loudly for the extinction of the institution that her call could not be disobeyed, when the peace and tranquillity of the land would demand in thunder tones the destruction of the institution as inconsistent with such peace and tranquillity; and when the sentiment of the world would become shocked with the existence of a condition of things in the only free Government, upon the faceof the globe as far as the white man is concerned, and founded upon principles utterly inconsistent with any other form of government than a Government which secures Ireedom—when the sentiment of the world would be shocked by the continuing existence of human bondage and we should become the scoff and scorn of Christendom.

I am not to be told, Mr. President, that our fathers looked to this race merely because they differed in color from ourselves as not entitled to the rights which for themselves they declared to be inalienable. There was not one of them, from the most humble, intellectually and morally there were any humble in that great body which formed the Convention that recommended the Constitution of the United States to the adoption of the American people—who would not have been shocked if he had been told that there was a right to make a slave of any human being. The advocates of slavery now in our midst do not mean here, but m the South and in some of the pulpits at the North—say that slavery of the black race is of divine origin. Scriptural authority for its existence and its perpetual existence from time to time, till as I think, tnemoral mind has become nauseated by the declaration, has been vouched for its sanctity and its perpetual existence. The Saviour of mankind did not put an end to it by physical power or by the declaration of any existing illegality in word. His mission upon earth was not to propagate His doctrines by force. He came to save, not to conquer. His purpose was not to march armed legions throughout the habitable globe, securing the allegiance of those for whose safety He was striving. He warred by other influences. He aimed at the heart principally. He inculcated his doctrines, more ennobling than any that the world, enlightened as the world was before His advent upon earth, had been able to discover. He taught to man the obligation of brotherhood. He announced that the true duty of man was to do to others as he would have others do to him, to all men the world over; and unless some convert to the modern doctrine that slavery itself finds not only a guarantee for its existence but for its legal existence in the Scripture, excepts out of the operation of the influences which His morality brought to bear on the mind of the Christian world the black man, and shows that it was not intended to apply to black men, then it is not true, it cannot be true, that He designed His doctrine not to be equally applicable to the black and to the white, to the race of man as he then existed, or as he might exist in ail after time

Is it to besupposed, because of the present condition of this degraded population, that they are not proper subjects for the enjoyment of human freedom? Are they by nature, and in spite of whatever education tyranny may have left them, so mentally and morally deficient that they do not know what are the blessings of human freedom? What do wesee? Wherever the flag of the United States, the symbol of human liberty, nowgoes, under it from their hereditary bondage are to be found men, women and children assembling and craving its protection. Is it because they expect greater physical comfort, and that they obtain it? The mere physical condition of the man, in many cases, while under the control of a master, was better than that which he received after coming under the protection of our flag; but in the one the iron of oppression had pierced his soul, and in the other he is gladdened by the light of liberty. It is idle to deny, we feel it m our own persons, how with reference to that sentiment all men are brethren. Look to the illustrations which the times now afford, how in the illustration of that sentiment do we differ from the black man? He is willing to incur every personal danger which promises to result in throwing down his shackles and making him tread the earth which God lias created for all as a man and not as a slave. It is an instinct of the soul. Tyranny may oppress it for ages and centuries; the pall of despotism may hang over it; but the sentiment is ever there; it kindles into a flame in the very furnace of affliction, and it avails itself of the first opportunity that offers promising the least chance of escape, arid wades through blood and slaughter to achieve it, and whether it succeeds or fails demonstrates, vindicates in the very effort the inextinguishable right to liberty.

Then, Mr. president, if, as all men, I think, must admit, who permit themselves to consider the question fan ly, all prejudice apart, that slavery is a sin, is a wrong, cries for redress, should be redressed, the only practical difficulty which stands m our way, in my judgment, is, can it be done without introducing worse evils than will result from its present continuance? In myjudgment the continuance of the right and authority of this Union and Government, administrated upon the principles to be found incorporated in the Constitution of the United States, is much more important to the welfare of the human race, and to our own portion of the human race, than is the continuation of slavery. Can the two go on together now?

There was a time when I believed that for ages and ages they might go on, that the abolition of the institution would he the result of peaceful causes, influences, though silent, persuasive; but, as 1 think, owing to misjudging philanthropy in one section, and to a traitorous purpose in another, that time, in my view, has passed. Let the institution be abolished, and the subject is taken from the political controversies of the day on which and in relation to which alone the southern people can be excited to madness by the traitors who may come into existence from time to time. Their first effort to destroy the Government was by the declared asserted oppressions of the tariff and its unconstitutionality. That failed thirty odd years ago. The present incumbent of the presidential chair is elected, elected by a sectional vote, and the moment the news reaches Charleston where some of the leading conspirators were, and here in this Chamber where others were to be found, it was hailed not with regret but with delight. Why? Because, as they thought, it would enable them to drive the South to madness by appealing to the danger in which such an event involved this institution which the people were made to believe was so essential to their power and to their happiness, and that will be repeated over and over again just as long as the institution is suffered to remain. Terminate it, and the wit of man will, as I think, be unable to devise any other topic upon which we can be involved in a fratricidal strife. God and nature, judging by the history of the past, intend us to be one. Our unity is written in the mountains and the rivers, in which we all have an interest. The very differences of climate render each important to the other and alike important. That mighty horde which from time to time have ^onc from the Atlantic, imbued with all the principles of human freedom which animated their fathers in running the perils of the mighty deep ami seeking liberty here, are now there, and as they have said they will continue to say until time shall be no more: We mean that the Government in future shall be as it has been in the past, one an example of human freedom for the light and example of the world, and illustrating in the blessings and the happiness it confers the truth of the principles incorporated into the Declaration of Independence, that life and liberty are man s inalienable ight.

Mischiefs may be the result of such a measure, but, a?? I think, they will be temporary; but mischiefs must he the result of what has already occurred; the institution is now fatally wounded; it can survive but to fester and to trouble us; and it would be a disgrace to the nation jf we could suffer those Africans, whom we aie now calling around our standard and asking to aid us in restoring the Constitution and the power of the Government to its rightful authority, to be reduced to bondage again. Upon a question like that the heart gives the answer in advance of the intellect it proclaims at rtnee in a tone that would fill the land, carrying rebuke, stern and crushing, to whoever may deny it, "No, no, never; freedom once enjoyed none but a brute m this age of the world would take it from its object."

Now, sir, a word or two more, and I shall he done. The honorable member from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cow n inquired what difference there will he on the cessation of this war between the condition of an apprentice or a child who has been summoned into the service of the country and the condition of a slave. All the difference in the world, all the difference imaginable'. In the first, justice has nothing to plead, the master s authority may be reinstated, the relation of apprenticeship restored, no wrong civil or moral perpetrated; but in the last to restore the victim to slavery is a ei cruelty not less but more in degree than to take away his life, i have always thought that. Terminate whenever the struggle may, whatever may be the condition of this race when it shall tei minafe, if it be, as I trust in God it will bo, a state of freedom, that is to be as permanent aw is our own freedom. We are to share the same dangers, enjoy according to our power and our means aiui our ability the same prosperity, and when we die, die as men, and not as chattels. The only practical mischief of the measure is the condition of the slaves. They are uneducated. If there was nothing in the teachings of morality which as I think belong to an unadulterated moral constitution, showing the wickedness of this institution, showing how inconsistent it is with such principles and with religion, it might be shown by appealing to the conduct of the slave owners themselves. Why are these poor creatures kept in a state of absolute ignorance? Why is education, the most humble, denied them? Why are the Holy Scriptures kept from their hovels r Why? Can there be but one answer: that if they knew what knowledge imparts, if they knew what the gospel of our Saviour inculcates, they would be freemen, or sooner or later die in the effort to obtain it?

Mr. President, I feel that I have taken up much more of the time of the Senate than I had a right to exact, and I conclude with saying not a truth which every Senator here does not feel as strongly as I feel, but with saying what is indelibly engraved upon my soul, that we owe it not only to ourselves and to those who are to follow us, but to humanity, to bring this war to a successful result. All otherconsiderationsshould for a time, be forgotten. One single object should ever be before us—the restoration of the Union; and when it shall be restored as I trust in Providence it will be, and unquestionably can be, if the power of the Government is exerted as it may be, we shall be restored, I trust, with a Government, national and State, in which human bondage has no place, and when we shall be able to say to the world," However late we were in carrying out the principles of our institutions, we have at last accomplished it. The Union is restored, and slavery is terminated."

Mr. SAULSBURY. Mr. President, the honorable Senator from Maryland in a portion of his remarks referred to a position which I assumed the other day, that it was not competent for the people of the States by ratification to make the proposed amendment to the Constitution obligatory upon any protesting State; and he was kind enough in that connection to put a question to me and to tell me that I could answer it hereafter. I shall not attempt, as it is now near the hour of adjournment, to answer that question this afternoon; but I will take occasion, before the debate closes upon this proposed amendment to the Constitution to give an answer to that question, and to propound perhaps one or two m reply in reference to some of the positions of the honorable Senator in his speech.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The question is on the, amendment proposed by the Senator from Kentucky, [Mr. Davis,] upon whichthe yeas and nays have been ordered.

Mr. DAVIS and others called for the reading of the amendment.

The Secretary read the amendment, which was to st like out all after the word" namely" in the amendment repoi ted by the Committee on the Judiciary, and to insert:

No negro, ot person whose mother or grandmother is or was a negro, shall be a citizen of the United and he eligible to anyehitoi military office, or to any place of trust or profit under the United i States.

The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted—yeas 5, nays 32; as follows:

YHAS—Messrs. lUickalew, lJavb, Powell, Riddle, and SaiiMmiy—#

NAYS—Messrs. Anthony, Chandler, Clailc, Collamer, Conner, IJixoti, Doohnlc, Fe«v< n«l jn Foot, Grimes, liaidimi, Harlan. Ham-, Howard, Howe, Johnson, Lane of Indiana, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Pomeroy, Ramsey. Sherman, Hpia ue Sumner, Ten Hjck, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Wade, Willey, and Wilson— 3 2

So the amendment to the amendment was rejected.

Mr. DAVIS. I propose another amendment' to the amendment of the committee; it is at the end of section one of the proposed article to insert:

But no negro, oi poison whose mother or grandmother is or was a negro, slnill be a citizen of the United States, or be eligible to any civil or military oifice, or to any place of trust or p ofit under the United .States.

Mr. HALE. Can that amendment be amended "TheVlCE PRESIDENT. It cannot; itisan amendment to an amendment.

Mr. HALE. I should like to put in the great grandmother also. [Laughter.]

Mr. TRUMBULL. Is not that the same amendment on which we just voted?

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Chair has the impression thatit is a little different, but can only tell from recollection.

Mr. DAVIS. This is the difference: the proposition upon which we voted before was a substitute for the proposed constitutional amendment; this is an amendment to the amendment by adding to it.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Is this in the same words as the proposition just voted upon?

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Then, in the opinion the Chair, it is not in order.

Mr. DAVIS. Let me suggest this: the first amendment I offered was as a total substitute for the amendment of the committee; I offer it now as an amendment to be appended to the committee 's amendment, which, if adopted, will be a part of that proposition.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Then, in the opinion of the Chair, the amendment is m order.

Mr. ANTHONY. I hope we shall have the amendmentof the Scnatorfrom New Hampshire, [Mr. Hale,] for although it is not in order to amend an amendment to an amendment, I have no doubt the Senator from Kentucky will accept whatever the Senator from New Hampshire may propose. That would be in order.

Mr. DAVIS. I did not hear the honorable Senator from Rhode Island.

Mr. ANTHONY. The Senator from New Hampshire proposed to amend the amendment of the Senator from Kentucky, which the Chairdecided to be out of order; but I understand that if the Senator from Kentucky will accept the amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire, it will be in order.

The VICE PRESIDENT. It will.

Mr. ANTHONY. I hope the Senator from New Hampshire will state what his amendment

Mr. POWELL. I move that the Senate do now adjourn.

Mr. DAVIS. T wonder what the Senator from Rhode Island has to do with any suggested amendment by the Senator from New Hampshire to my amendment.

Mr. ANTHONY. Merely to endeavorto reconcile the difficulty between the two Senators. [Laugh tor.]

Mr. DAVIS. The Senator might as well attend to his own business. [Laughter.]

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Powell] moves that the Senate do now adjourn.

Mr. POWELL. I ask for the yeas and nays. The yeas and nays were not ordered; but four Senators seconding the call.

The question being put,

The VICE PRESDENT declared that the motion was not agreed to.

Mi. POWELL. I ask for a division.

The question being again put, there were, on a division—ayes 4, noes 33; so the Senate refused to adjourn.

The question was put on the amendment to the amendment; and it was declared to be rejected.

Mr. DAVIS. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Several Senators. Too late.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Chair thinks it is rather too late; the result has been announced. The Senator can move his amendment again 111 the Senate when thejoint resolution shall have been reported from the Committee of the Whole.

Mr. DAVIS. I would as soon do it now.

Mr. TRUMBULL. We have just had the yeas and nays on the proposition.

Mr DAVIS. The propositions are different. I do not care particularly when T have the yeas and nays on this amendment; but I would as soon have them now as at any other time.

Mr. WILSON. Let us give them now.

The VICE PRESIDENT. If there be no objection on the part of any Senator, the Chair will see whether there is a second for the call for the yeas and nays.

Mr. FOOT. This joint resolution is now before us as in Committee of the Whole, and the Senator will have the opportunity of moving his amendment when it shall be reported to the Senate, and I ask him if that will not be entirely satisfactory.

Mr. DAVIS. I have no objection to that course.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The amendment to the amendment is rejected.

Mr. DAVIS. I propose now to amend the amendment reported by the committee by adding these words to the first section of the proposed article:

But no slave shall be entitled to his or her freedom under this amendment it resident at the tune it takes effect in any State the laws of winch forbid free negroes to reside therein, until removed from such State by the Government of the United States.

I ask for the yeas and nays on this proposition. The yeas and nays were not ordered; but four members seconding the call.

The amendment to the amendment was rejected.

Mr. POWELL. I move to amend the amendment of the committee by adding at the end of the first section:

No slave shall be emancipated by this article unless the owner thereof shall be first paid the value of the slave or slaves so emancipated.

I should like to speak upon this amendment, but it is rather late now.

Several Senators. There is plenty of time; go on.

Mr. POWELL. No; I content myself with asking for the yeas and nays upon my proposition.

The yeas and nays were ord-ered; and being taken, resulted—yeas 2, nays 34; as follows:

YEAS— Messrs. Davis and Powell—

NAYS—Messrs. Anthony, Huckalew. Carlile, Chandler, Claik, Collamer, Corniest, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden. Foot, Grimes, Hale, Harding, Harlan, Han is, Howard, IIowp, Johnson. Lane of Indiana, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Pomeioy, Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Wade, Willey, and Wilson 4

So the amendment to the amendment was rejected.

Mr. DAVIS. I will offer another amendment. I move to add at the end of section two of the proposed article:

And when this amendment of the Constitution shall have taken effect by freeing the slaves. Congress shall provide for the distribution and settlement of all the population of African descent in the United States anions; the several States and Territories thereof, in proportion to the white population of each State and Territory to the aggregate population of those of African descent.

I ask for the yeas and nays on this proposition. The yeas and nays were not ordered; but three members seconding: the call.

Mr. SAULSBURY. I wish to make a remark before the vote is taken. Some of these amendments present very embarrassing questions to persons who entertain this views that i do. For instance, the amendment just now voted down, providing for compensation to the masters of the slaves who may be emancipated, is one of that character. It is, 1 believe, considered legitimate to vote for amendments by way of .improving a bill, or with a view to defeat a bill. It is evident that it is not possible either to improve this meas: ure or to defeat it. I have never voted for compensation since 1 have been a member of this body; and for the simple reason that I do not believe there is any constitutional authority in Congress in the first place to pass such a proposition, and in the second place to take money out of the public Treasury for such a purpose. Both 1 believe to be wrong.

Now the proposition is to amend this resolution by distributing the persons whom you propose to make free among the different States according to their white population. If I could conscientiously vote for such a proposition, if I thought Congress had the power to do it, I would be very glad to transplant all these free negroes to that region of country where they seem to be so popular and where there seems to be such a love for them. But, sir, I cannot vote to give the power— if it is a question of bestowing power—tin tCongress shall send any of this class of beings into my State. We have enough of them already. About one fifth of our whole population are free negroes set free by a supposed humanity on the part of their masters, which I am satisfied now was no real humanity, whatever may have been thejnotive prompting it.

But, sir, 1 wish to have no more of this class of beings within my State. While I do not believe that Congress lias the power to disti ibate them among the States according to their white population, and to say to the States that they shall reside in those particular States, I think that same kind feeling which prompts our northern friends to try to give them freedom should prompt them to take them home among themselves where they can have a personal supervision over them, and where they can see that this long oppressed race, whose oppression calls to Heaven, as w e have been told to day for vengeance upon the sins of a guilty land, are protected; where they can act the, part of guardians. But I cannot vote for the proposition of my honorable friend from Kentucky, simply because I do not think the power exists in the Federal Government to make the distribution among the States of this class of beings which the amendment contemplates.

Mr. DAVIS. I concede that the Federal Government cannot make such a disti ibution without a change of the Constitution. Under the present Constitution and the powers which itconfeis upon Congress, I concede that no such legislation could legitimately take place; but 1 will remark to my honorable friend that this proposition, if adopted, would relieve his State from some of its negro population, and it is the proposition m substance which he himself made to Congress some twelve or eighteen months a o

Mr. SAULSBURY. I will ask my honorable friend from Kentucky whether he proposes this to be incorporated as a part of the amendment to the Constitution.

Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.

Mr. SAULSBURY. I did not so understand it. I though tit was to be a part of the joint resolution, but no part of the proposed amendment.

Mr. DAVIS. It is a paitof the amendment to the Constitution.

Mr. SAULSBURY. That relieves it from the objection. I should be very glad myself to adopt any proposition that would enable us to get rid of some of this class of population.

The amendment to tiie amendment was rejected.

Mr. HARLAN. I move that the Senate adjourn.

Mr. TRUMBULL. Before the Senate votes on that motion I wish to make a single remark. I understand that the Senator from Iowa designs making some remarks on this subject, and I am not disposed, for one, on a great question like this, unexpectedly to force a vote upon it. 1 hope the Senate will let us have a vote upon it to-morrow. if any other pi rson designs speaking further upon it he will be afforded an opportunity to do so after the Senator from Iowa shall have concluded his remarks, If we adjourn today with an understanding that we shall try to get a vote to-morrow, 1 hope the Sena to is will be present and let us have a vote on that occasion.

Mr. POWELL. I am exceedingly glad to find that the Senator from Illinois is willing to exhibit a little courtesy to the Senator from Iowa. He wow very anxious to have a vote when moved an adjournment a few moments since, in order to submit a few remarks on an amendment that I offered. I wdi cheerfully vote for the motion to adjourn to enable the Senator from Iowa to speak on this subject to moriow I do not expect to take up any time to morrow myself.

The VICE PRESIDENT. All this debate is out of order. The question is on the motion to adjourn, which i s not debatable.

The motion was agreed to; there being, on a division —ayes twenty one noes not counted; and the Senate adjourned.