to accept their amendments; but the act emerged safely from conference stronger than it had left the Senate, and with the title, "A bill to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate the property of rebels, and for other purpose." 997

If Wilmot, as just said, was dissatisfied with the efficacy of the bill as passed, Lincoln was quite as much so, if not more. He was, in fact, preparing a veto, when Congress, forewarned and alarmed into preventive action, adopted a joint resolution explanatory of the act and remedying its shortcomings. This resolution, originating in the House, was passed by the Senate, July 16, 1862, Wilmot aiding in its passage and in rejecting various efforts to lessen its force. The President then abandoned his purpose of veto and signed both bill and resolution.

The combined effect of these two enactments is considered by Nicolay and Hay to be a long step toward complete emancipation. The confiscation act of 1861, they point out, "only went to the extent of making free the slaves actually employed in military service. The new law undertook to deal more generally with the subject, and indeed extended its provisions beyond the mere idea of confiscation. While other subjects were included, its spirit and object would have been better expressed by the title, 'An Act to Destroy Slavery under the Power of the War.'" Such exercise of the war power, in the circumstances existing, was in close harmony with the constitutional and legal interpretations set forth by David Wilmot in his speech on the bill and in his Cooper Union letter given in the following chapter.

7 Senate Journal, pp. 816, 817.

8 Senate Journal, p. 861. Abraham Lincoln: A History, Vol. VI, p. 101.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE TARIFF BILL AND THE ACT ESTABLISHING FREEDOM IN

THE TERRITORIES

WILMOT'S Vote for the revision and increase of the Morrill tariff, known in the second session of the 37th Congress as H. R. No. 312, the "bill to provide internal revenue to support the government and pay interest on the public debt," has been taken as proof of his abandonment of the views he held and expressed so strongly in 1846; for this tax bill of 1862 was a long leap back toward higher duties, following shortly after the relatively moderate step toward protection taken in the original Morrill tariff, of February 20, 1861. The rates fixed in the tariff of 1846, during Wilmot's first session-the low rates in whose advocacy he had incurred denunciation and abuse-had been still further reduced in 1857, to a scale lower, indeed, than at any time since 1816. But now the pendulum went violently backward, and Wilmot, as an assistant to its swing, has been classed as a late-life protectionist.

If any proof of such a shift of views exists, it must be sought elsewhere; for this tariff bill of 1862 was an emergency measure, in which all other considerations were necessarily subordinate to the one great purpose of meeting the expenses of the war as soon as possible and in the most feasible way. Party lines and personal theories were suppressed for the moment, and Wilmot was but one of many who thus disregarded individual preference to join in the majority of 37 by which, on June 6, 1862, the Senate passed the bill over the single dissenting vote of Lazarus W. Powell, of Kentucky.

Wilmot's dislike of many features, and indeed of the basis and structure of the bill itself, was expressed rather early in the session. The measure came over from the House, April

10, 1862, was reported back from the finance committee, May 6 (with a substitute proposed by Senator Simmons, of Rhode Island), and was made the special order of business beginning with May 21. On May 31, in opening his remarks in opposition to the proposed tax on coal, Wilmot said: '

1

I am opposed to this whole bill. To me it appears to be a cumbersome, complicated piece of machinery, which will require a very large number of officeholders to execute it. It will send them into every man's dwelling and into every man's place of business. It is to my mind a very mischievous bill indeed. I believe that the bill proposes to raise twice the revenue that the wants of the country demand. I have no doubt about it. A revenue of $75,000,000 raised by internal taxation will be abundant for all the purposes that are required by the government. Our tariff yields us about $60,000,000. In time of peace, with the additions made to it recently, it will yield us $100,000,000, in my judgment. We had a statement here a few days since as to the indebtedness of the country, from which it appears that we shall be indebted at the close of this fiscal year about $550,000,000. We want to provide for the payment of interest on that debt, and if it be necessary, a small sinking fund. I, however, would provide no sinking fund at this day-not one dollar. I would have the government stand between the people and the public creditor. At this time let us provide for payment of the interest on the public debt, and let it stand thus for the next five or ten years. The Government can borrow money at a rate of interest not exceeding 5 per cent to-day, and it may cost the taxpayer 15 or 20 per cent to raise the money necessary to meet this tax. Let the Government stand between the taxpayer and the public creditor, and not attempt at this time to raise any surplus revenue for purposes of liquidation. We can provide for that in the future, when experience shall have demonstrated how we can best do it and with the least injury to the public interest and with the least burden to the people. I am, therefore, opposed to the bill, and shall vote cheerfully for the substitute of the Senator from Rhode Island.

1 Cong. Globe, Thirty-seventh Congress, 2nd session, p. 2472.

3

2

However, having thus voiced once and briefly his spiritual dissent, he set himself at the practical task of making the best possible of a measure which, though he considered it to be bad, he recognized as the only one that could be passed in the time available. His attitude toward all more important provisions of the act may be followed by his votes, for he was diligent in his attention, taking part in the discussion of many points and appearing on one side or the other in all but a very few of the fifty-odd recorded yeas and nays. He favored every proposal for increasing the tax on whisky; and the amendment imposing a tax of five cents a gallon on wine made from grapes. He tried hard, but vainly, to keep in a provision for a luxury tax on carriages, yachts, pianos, watches, gold and silver plate, etc. He resisted amendments excepting savings institutions from the income tax imposed on banks and trust companies generally, and an amendment reducing the tax on the gross receipts of insurance companies; but he resisted, also, an attempt to repeal the provision granting partial exemption from tax on income derived from securities of the United States. He voted against a proposal that gas companies be allowed to add to consumers' bills the tax laid on their profits; but here dissent from the doctrine of Federal interference with State charters may have been as potent as disapproval of the ethics of the suggestion.

8

A rather more curious interest attaches to Wilmot's vote against a proviso offered by Saulsbury, of Delaware, that no portion of the money raised by the operations of the act should be expended for the support or maintenance of fugitive slaves or free negroes (a proviso which the Senate refused to adopt), and his earnest support of Sumner's proposal that a tax of $2 should be imposed for every person claimed as a slave, but that the sale of the person so claimed for the purpose of collecting the tax should be prohibited. This was strongly

5

2 Cong. Globe, Thirty-seventh Congress, 2nd session, pp. 2448, 2519. 4 Cong. Globe, p. 2551. Cong. Globe, p. 2457. Cong. Globe, p. 2454.

3 Cong. Globe, p. 2522.

6 Cong. Globe, p. 2556. Cong. Globe, p. 2587.

8 Cong. Globe, p. 2576.

resisted from southern sympathizers as unconstitutional, and Wilmot entered the lists of debate in defence of Sumner's proposition.10 He said:

I am unwilling to admit . . . that my antislavery experience, in the struggles through which I have passed, have made me less competent to judge correctly of the Constitution; and if I did not believe that Congress had the clear, constitutional right to impose this tax, I would not rise here for the purpose of saying a word in its support.

We cannot, Mr. President, it seems, either touch slavery or touch any of the great products of slavery, without having the Constitution interposed against our action. There are two productions in which the South enjoys a monopoly; one is cotton, and the other is slaves. We have succeeded in imposing a very small tax upon cotton; not without great difficulty and by a close vote, and in doing this we have met a constitutional objection. In the estimation of many Senators, it was unconstitutional to tax cotton, because it amounted to a duty upon exportation. They said it was an indirect mode of imposing export duties, and, therefore, it was unconstitutional. We now reach, more directly, the question of the taxation of slaves, and here again the Constitution is interposed against our action.

I do not understand this to be a poll tax, or capitation tax. By a capitation tax I understand a tax which reaches every head in the country. It is a tax imposed over the whole country, and imposed on every man in it. This is a capitation or poll tax. We tax lawyers in this bill; we tax their license to practice. Is not the taxation on lawyers a poll tax as much as the tax upon slaves? Again, suppose we were to impose certain taxes upon the service due from an apprentice to a master, would that be a capitation or poll tax? Is it not a proper subject of taxation? The master has property in the service of the slave, and we tax that property or claim of property. I agree with the Senator from New Hampshire on that question, and I would be as far as he from any recognition of the right of property in man. I will never make the recognition; and yet I am here to legislate practically on this

10 Cong. Globe, pp. 2600, 2601.