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Douglas on the Powers of the Executive.

You cannot, and dare not, place | Mr. Buchanan grounded his Message of Dea Collector of Customs at either cember 4th, [see pages 55-62.] His entire of these places, until you con- argument was that of the Attorney-General. quer the city where your Collector is to reside." As the President had said, in his Inaugural, that he was not going to appoint judges, marshals, &c., in the Seceded States, and as these were absolutely necessary for the enforcement of the laws, he could not conceive of any cause for apprehension, in that regard. He could only pursue a war policy by calling Congress together, and by having it clothe him with power and providing him with means.

He inferred, therefore, that there was no danger from a collision with the Confederate authorities, unless the President should violate the law, and also violate his oath of office by using force to do that which the law forbade him to do. He (Douglas) did not believe Mr. Lincoln, was going to do any such thing.

Recurring to the question of blockade, he assumed that there was no more legal right This brought the speaker to the point: "Are to blockade the ports of Charleston or New we going to withold the means or not?" Orleans than that of Chicago or Boston. He assumed not, and cited as his reason the The President dare not obstruct commerce at fact that, notwithstanding the Republicans the ports of any city in the Seceded States had the control for six weeks, in both Houses, any more than he does to obstruct the ports they had conferred no power on the Execuof loyal States, from want of power. He tive for regaining possession of the property could only order revenue-cutters to overhaul seized—had given him no power to blockade a ship to see if her papers were correct, to ports, nor to collect the revenues. guard against smuggling, where smuggling was suspected; but he could do no more. The law gave him no power to prevent a vessel with correct papers from going into any port-no power to collect duties from such vessel other than at the regular Customhouse of the District.

This called out Fessenden, between whom and Mr. Douglas some warm words passed. Mr. Douglas continued to press his point, charging that, in the several stages of proceedings in both Houses, the Republicans had shrunk from all resolutions empowering the Executive and Departments with power to enforce their abrogated authority. He cited cases where such laws could have been passed as had been proposed by individual members, for arraigning traitors, punishing offenders, suppressing insurrection, &c., &c.; but, the fact that the majority had not committed itself to a course of coercion, proved that it did not dare to encounter the responsibility of such a proceeding.

Mr. Douglas then proceeded to a review of the question of the enforcement of laws in the Seceded States, and assumed the position that the President could use neither the army or navy, except as prescribed by law. If there was an insurrection in any State against its laws and authorities, the President could only use the military to suppress the insurrection when called upon by the State authorities. He cannot interfere except when requested. If the insurrection existed against the laws of the United States, then the President could only use the military as a posse "We certainly cannot justicomitatus to aid the Marshal. The militaryfy the holding of forts there, could then only be used to aid in the execu(in the South,) much less the tion of a writ properly issued by civil process.

He cited the acts of 1795 and 1807 to show

that his point was well taken-that the military power, whether of the navy, army, volunteers or militia-could only be used in aid of the civil authorities,—in this respect sustaining the position assumed by Attorney General Black,[see pages 66-69,] upon which

Mr. Douglas was evidently for recognizing the independence of the Confederate States. He said :

Douglas for Southern
Independence.

recapturing of those that have been taken, unless

we intend to reduce those States themselves into

subjection. I take it for granted no man will deny Charleston and South Carolina is entitled to the possession of Fort Sumter. Whoever permanently holds Pensacola and Florida is entitled to the pos session of Fort Pickens. Whoever holds the States

the proposition that whoever permanently holds

FESSENDEN

VS.

DOUGLAS

41

in whose limits those forts are placed is entitled to Illinois stepped forth, unasked, to give an interthe forts themselves, unless there is something pe-pretation of it. Nobody on this side of the Chamber culiar in the location of some particular fort that makes it important for us to hold it for the general defence of the whole country, its commerce and interests, instead of being useful only for the defence of a particular city or locality. It is true that Forts Taylor and Jefferson at Key West and Tortugas are so situated as to be essentially national, and therefore important to us without reference to our relations with the Seceded States. Not so with Moultrie, Johnson, Castle Pinckney, and Sumter, in Charleston harbor; not so with Pulaski, on Savannah River; not so with Morgan and other forts in Alabama; not so with those other forts that were intended to guard the entrance of a particular harbor for local defence. # * * We have no use for the forts at the mouth of the Mississippi if we allow the Southern Confederacy to hold the State of Louisiana, and command both sides of the river. The forts there are very essential to us if we intend to conquer and reduce her people into subjection to our laws. * * We cannot deny that there is & Southern Confederacy, de facto, in existence, with its Capital at Montgomery. We may regret it. I regret it most profoundly. but I cannot deny the truth of the fact, painful and mortifying as it is."

His speech following these declarations was particularly severe on the Republicans. Its sentiment was to sustain the Government by such amendments to the Constitution as would satisfy the South, and thus to restore the Union. He deprecated war in the strongest terms as tending to render the disruption of the Union final and irremedial. He asked that Anderson should be withdrawn from Sumter, and that the Administration should, by word and deed, prove its policy to be one of peace, for which thirty millions of people would honor and glorify it.

Douglas was answered by Wilson and Fessenden, in a caustic and personal manner, to which he also replied with equal severity; and, for a while, the debate assumed a decidedly belligerent aspect. The Republicans assumed the position of Unionists. Wilson said:

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has undertaken either to sanction or to disavow that interpretation. But the Senator from Illinois is not content to stand even upon his own interpretation of the Inaugural. He is not content that the President of the United States and his Cabinet, who have just taken possession of a Government and a country in ruins, shall have time enough to cast about them to see what principle and patriotism require them to do; but he rushes into this Chamber, and brings forward a resolution calling upon the Administration at once to declare to the country what it intends to do. The Senator struts before the Senate and the country, and talks about what he will not permit-what he will do. I beg leave to say to that Senator that, in the Senate and in the country, he is clothed with no power to dictate to us, or to any considerable body of men. He has not a Senate at his heels. He stands here quite alone; and he is hardly more powerful before the nation. I say to that Senator-and I want him and his friends to understand it-that the Administration which has just come into power will take its own time to deliberate, to act, to declare its policy; that it does not select him as its exponent; that it will speak in due and proper time its own sentiments, define its own policy, and will do it through those in whom it reposes confidence-those who have a right to speak for it.”

The Massachusetts Senator furthermore characterized Mr. Douglas' speech as wicked, mischievous, and, in the then state of the country, as unpatriotic. He was an alarmist, when the best interests of the country required calmness, circumspection, and caution. The Republicans were silent, for they were bound to do nothing, to say nothing, which should prejudice the cause of the Union and the best interests of the common country.

Fessenden

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Douglas.

Fessenden was equally severe on the Illinois Senator, whose speech-making propensities, he charged, were irrepressible. The President's Inaugural, the Repul iicans believed, was a peace-offering; and they were solicitous that the Administration should have an opportunity to develop its policy as events might demand. But, before the Presidential chair was warm, the Illinois representative had rushed forward, first to defend the chair, then to assail it with a demand for it to "show its hand." He had got up a controversy on his own speech, since nobody else seemed inclined to take it up. His purpose, Mr.

Fessenden

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Douglas.

Fessenden declared to be "to inflame the suspicions of the people; to arouse their spirit and the anxieties which are now about being lulled to sleep, and which soon will be utterly destroyed and exterminated by the peaceful, yet firm, course of the Administration which they have chosen." He said: "Why seek to inflame all these slumbering ani mosities at a moment when there is a prospect that we shall hear no more of them, and before the Administration which we have inaugurated has had time to tell the country, by a single act, what it meant to do? Why is it brought forward here in the shape in which it is, sir, there upon your table, in this resolution, at a mere Executive session of the Senate, when we have no power of legislation whatever-when nothing that we can do,

nothing that we can say, nothing that is in our power, can have any potency for any purpose or for any object? Why does the Senator come in here with this resolution, placing himself and standing upon idle rumors which he picks up about the streets, upon communications in newspapers, upon nothing which the Administration has said, nothing which any Senator has said--assuming all-to charge that there is danger of this country being plunged into war, when, in the very same breath, too, he says that the President has declared for peace, and he be

lieves he means it?

"We have done what we saw fit to do in relation to this matter. We have carried out our policy, so far as we had any, up to this point. We hope to develop hereafter what may be our policy with reference to the country, and that it may be successful. When the Senator assumes, and takes it for granted that we could have passed any bills during the last session, and talks about our power in this Senate up to the time when the last Congress adjourned, I will not say that he knew he was stating what was not true, but I will say that, if he had given himself a moment's time for reflection, he must have been aware that everybody around him knew what he stated was not true. There never was a day, during

ministration, and thus, indirectly, a strong partisan of the South. [The Senator lived long enough to see himself a firm supporter of the Administration; and the injunction from his dying lips, to "stand by the Constitution and the laws," proves how completely the partisan can be lost in the patriot in truly noble natures, when the soul has to stand forth in its nakedness and declare for the right or the wrong.]

Breckenridge on the Administration.

Monday, the Douglas Resolution being under consideration, Mr. Breckenridge addressed the Senate. His speech was clearly defined in its antagonism to Republican policy. It foreshadowed the extreme Southern direction of the Kentuckian's

sympathies. He said that in the then distracted state of the country the Senate should not adjourn without expressing an opinion on the existing state of affairs, and giving some advice tending to allay public apprehension. Opinion seemed divided as to the meaning of the Inaugural. He was free to confess, and was gratified to do so, that its general expressions were for harmony and the prevention of bloodshed. But, the policy that the President said he deemed it his duty to pursue must result in bloodshed, unless essentially modified. The leading idea of the Inaugural, very clearly set forth, was, that the President did not recognize, in any sense, the existence of another Confederacy, but that he regarded all the proceedings and acts in the Seceding States as insurrectionary and revolutionary, and it was his purpose, to the extent of his power, to "enforce the laws" in all the States, including those which had

withdrawn.

The inference was irresistible: to whatever extent force or invasion was necessary to collect the duties on imports, and to maintain that Congress, from the beginning to the end, that we the posts, and occupy the forts, it was his had the power to pass any bill against the will of constitutional duty to employ it. It was the other side of the House There never was a day when we had a majority in this Chamber. On true the President had qualified this declarasome occasions we had the aid of the Senator from tion, by saying that the course indicated Illinois himself, and of some others of the other side; would be followed, "unless current events but we never had the power to pass any bill which and experience should show a modification the majority chose we should not pass, in any case." and change to be proper, and that, in every The personalities indulged in by the par- case and exigency, his best discretion would ties created much excitement at the time. be exercised according to the circumstances The matter ended in leaving Mr. Douglas in actually existing, and with a view to the' the position of a bitter opponent of the Ad-peaceful solution of national troubles and the

BRECKENRIDGE ON THE ADMINISTRATION.

43

Breckenridge on the
Administration.

pathies and affections." He (Breckenridge) took this qualification to mean he would not undertake to execute the laws, or to hold forts and other places within the withdrawing States, except where circumstances should show his ability to do so; and if he should not undertake to exercise those functions, because it would be irritating and make the hopes of a peaceful solution more doubtful, then his policy would be that which would prevent irritation and bloodshed. The President considered the duty to hold, possess, and occupy the forts, and collect the duties on imports, to be modified according to the necessities of the case which surrounded him; otherwise his policy would be simple and easy.

Breckenridge on the
Administration.

restoration of fraternal sym- | tion of the Standing Committees there was scarcely a chairman of any one of them whose known opinion was not in favor of this policy. The country should not be deceived. What was meant by peace and conciliation? How was it to be maintained ? He desired it as sincerely as he desired the union of all the States. He had seen no measures of practical policy which tended to produce this result. We were in constant danger of collision and bloodshed. For the sake of the political and material interests of the country, the support of its credit and general prosperity, let us establish some leading principle. If the peace policy was not to prevail, let us get ready for the conflict. He argued that if blood be shed the last hope Looking at Fort Sumter, what were the of preserving what was left of the Union was reasons for its rumored evacuation? Not gone. His opinion was, that the Federal political, but military; not because, in the Government could not be restored on the opinion of the Administration, a reenforce-principles which brought the dominant ment of the fort would irritate the pubiic party into power. He said: mind and render conciliation and harmony doubtful, but because the military and naval power did not exist to penetrate to that point. Unless the purpose of the President was to use force only so far as was necessary, he would, if his object was purely one of conciliation, withdraw the troops for political and not military reasons. Then he thought he was justified in construing the Inaugural to mean that the President would hold the forts and other places within the Confederate States, and collect the duties on imports, to the extent of his power; and, if there was any modification, it would be because of his inability, and not because he would be will-State equality, to the naked idea of Federal unity.” ing to withdraw the troops for the purpose of producing conciliation and peace in the public mind.

The character of the Cabinet was not such as to indicate the belief that force would not be used. Every member except one was understood to be in favor of coercion if it became necessary to reduce the South to subjugation. The very organization of the Senate, and the opinion continually expressed by Republicans therein, showed that their purpose was to maintain the authority of the Federal Government over the withdrawn States by force, if necessary. In the forma

"Mr. President, for one I prefer the present Federal Government, administered in the spirit of the Constitution, to any other government on earth. I believe, thus administered, it is the best on the earth. I inherited, and all my life have cherished, an habitual and cordial attachment to a constitutional Union, and now would be willing, any day, to die for it. But, while I believe, administered according to the true principles of the Constitution, it is the best on earth, I also believe that, administered without the limitations of the Constitution, and, by the simple power of a sectional majority, it becomes the worst on earth; and, for myself, neither in public nor in private life, will I ever consent to sacrifice the principles of constitutional freedom, of municipal liberty, and of

He further assumed that the Constitution had been perverted by the dominant party, and that the Union could only be preserved by an abrogation of its (Republican) first principles. His speech was as much a declaration of hostility to the Federal Government as any yet uttered, although his language was neither violent nor personally offensive. Its whole tone and tenor were that of a person in whose breast rankled the humiliation of political defeat. The declaration that the majority should be hurled from power, as the only means of preserving the Union, came with a bad grace from his lips, considering

Breckenridge on the
Administration.

the Union.

its sequence, that his own leader; on the contrary, when the tug of election would have se- war came, they flew to arms, armed both with cured the perpetuity of loyalty to the Government and with the bitterness of partisan mortification at the base uses to which they felt they had been designed by their Southern leaders.

These speeches by Messrs. Douglas and Breckenridge--the opposing candidates for the Presidency-are so strongly characteristic of the two men as to merit attention for their indications of individual idiosyncrasy. The first, submitting with apparent grace to his defeat, outwardly took his successful rival by the hand, and became his champion; but it was, unquestionably, a mere step of policy, that

Douglas and Brecken

ridge.

Hale answered Brecken

Hale's Reply to
Breckenridge.

ridge briefly, but pointedly.
The only proof cited by the
Kentucky Senator, in his general charges of
“unconstitutional designs” on the part of the
party in power, was, that they had resolved
to keep the South from the Territories with
their slaves-thus refusing a constitutional
recognition of the rights of property in slaves.
To this point Mr. Hale addressed himself
with telling force. He would like to know,
when the States of Virginia and Ken-
tucky came into the Union, what was the
law? Slavery was prohibited, not only by
the States, but by a compact irrepealable, in
every inch of Territory over which the Fed-
eral jurisdiction was exercised, and in 1789
the Federal flag did not wave over an inch
of broad earth, outside of the limits of any
State, where Slavery was not prohibited by
a compact declared irrepealable! He then
showed the wide expansion of Slavery over
the Territories, and wished to know what
more the South wanted? He was unable to
understand the charge of Northern aggres-
sion, and attributed all the clamor to the cir
cumstance that the "outs" were now in, and
the "ins" out.

he might the more effectually distract his adversary's administration. Douglas ever wished his country well; and he did not wish Mr. Lincoln ill: but his restless nature forbade him to accept any man's domination, while his extreme dislike of the Republicans led him to a course likely to worry them most, if not to thwart and defeat them. Breckenridge, on the other hand, was so little inclined to submit to defeat, that the mere fact of an adversary's success sufficed to render his antagonism unappeasable. He was thoroughly aristocratic in thought and feeling his "Southernism" amounted to a positive repudiation of the democratic principle, that the majority should rule. It should only rule when its views comported with his own, or with the special interests of his section. His spirit, carried into the counsels of a nation, would soon strip the populace of a right to to th rule. Douglas was extremely democratic in his sympathies, and took pride in being a people's exponent. Breckenridge, scorning the popular voice, was as arrogant in will as he was exclusive in sentiment. He was only democratic in order to use the people as his instrument; when they ceased to be such, he spurned them. He sought the favor of Northern Democrats by plot and counterplot, which proved him to be prolific in invention; but, he scorned association with them when it was discovered that, like good citizens and honest supporters of the Constitution, they quietly submitted to defeat to await victory in another struggle at the ballot-box. This repudiation of old associates did not add to their respect for their late

His peroration was particularly fine. We give a portion of it:

"Sir, I believe that this is the trial hour for this nation. I believe we are in a crisis. I believe that events of tremenduons importance are hanging upon the result of the action that we are taking and shall take. If the lawless spirit which sets itself up in defiance of the behests and decrees of the popular will, pronounced in the constitutional form, is to prevail, and the spirit of discontent is to be scattered broadcast over the land, and the constitutional ac

tion of the chosen heads of the nation is to be dis regarded from a spirit of fretful impatience; if every minority, as soon as it finds itself such, is to stand up dictating terms in advance to the majority, telling them "that must be so or we will go out of this Confederacy," your experiment is at an end; your existence as a nation is a chea: your history is a delusion; the example which you have set, instead of lighting

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