mission of the government was not to make this feeling stronger by deferring to it, or to doom the country to a prolonged war and deplorable sacrifices as the best means of teaching the people the truth. No. The country needed a speedy exodus from the bondage of false ideas, and the government should have pointed the way. A frank statement by it of the real issue of the war, without any disposition to cover up the truth; an unmistakable hostility to slavery as the organized curse, without which the rebellion would have been impossible; and the timely utterance in its leading State papers of a few bold and spirit-stirring words which might have been "half battles," appealing to the courage and manhood of the nation, would have gone far to educate the judgment and conscience of the people, and command their enthusiastic espousal of whatever measures would promise most speedily to end the struggle and economize its cost in property and life. Mr. Chairman, I take no pleasure, certainly, in thus freely discussing the policy of the government in its endeavors to meet its great responsibilities during this war. I have only referred to its mistakes as a servant of the truth, and in the name of the great cause which has been made to suffer. I believe, religiously, in the freedom of speech. From the beginning of the war I have exercised the right of frank, friendly, and fearless criticism of the conduct of our rulers, wherever I believed them to have been in the wrong. I shall continue to exercise it to the end; and if I should not, through any personal or prudential considerations, I would be unworthy of the seat I have occupied on this floor. Criticism has dictated the present policy of the government, and is still a duty. This great battle for the rights of man, and the actors in it, must be judged. None of them can "escape history." The fame of none of them is so precious as the truth, and as public justice, which cares for the dead as well as the living, for the common soldiers slain by thousands as well as for the general and the statesman. The President, his advisers, his commanding generals, and the civilians whose shaping hands have had so much to do with the conduct of the war, must all of them be weighed in the balance by the people and the generations to come. "The great soul of the world is just," and sooner or later all disguises will be thrown off, and every historical character will stand forth as he is, in the light of his deeds and deserts. The men who have been intrusted with the concerns of the nation in this momentous crisis will not be judged harshly. Much will be forgiven or excused on the score of the surpassing magnitude and difficulty of their work. Justice will be done; but that justice may brand as a crime the blunders proceeding from a feeble, timid, ambidextrous policy, resulting in great sacrifices of life and treasure, and periling the priceless interests at stake. I would award all due honor to this administration, and to the statesmen and generals who have been faithful to their high trusts; but I would award an equal honor to the rank and file of the people, who have inspired its present policy, and to the rank and file of our soldiers, who have saved the country in spite of the mistakes of the government, the strifes of our politicians, and the rivalries of our generals. These are the real heroes of the war. Untitled, practically unrewarded, facing every form of privation and danger, and animated by the purest patriotism, the common soldier is not only the true hero of the war, but the real savior of his country. But a higher honor, if not a more enduring fame, will be the heritage of the anti-slavery pioneers and prophets of our land: for "Peace hath higher tests of manhood Than battle ever knew." Without their heroic labors and sacrifices the Republic, "heir of all the ages," would have been the mightiest slave empire of the world. In an age of practical atheism and mammon-worship, when the Church and the State joined hands with Slavery as the new trinity of the nation's faith, they really believed in God, in justice, in the resistless might of the truth. They believed that liberty is the birthright of all men, and their grand mission was the practical vindication of this truth. They believed, with their whole hearts, in the Declaration of Independence. They accepted its teachings as coincident with the Gospel of Christ, and supported by reason and justice. It was their ceaseless "battle-cry of freedom," and they chanted it as "the fresh, the matin song of the universe," to the enslaved of all races and lands. They were branded as fanatics and infidels, and encountered everywhere the hootings of the multitude and the scorn of politicians and priests; but I know of no class of men who were ever more far-sighted, whose convictions rested on so broad a basis of Christian morals and logic, and whose religious trust was so strong and so steadfast. For them there was no "eclipse of faith." Just as the nation began to lapse from the grand ideas of our revolutionary era, they began to "cry aloud and spare not," and they never ceased or slackened their labors. Placing their ears to the ground in the infancy and weakness of their movement, they caught the rumbling thunders of civil war in the distance, warned the country of its danger, and preached repentance as the chosen and only means of escape. They were compelled to face mobs, violence, persecution, and death, and were always misunderstood or misrepresented; but they never faltered. Reputation, honors, property, worldly ease, were all freely laid upon the altar of duty, in their resolve to vindicate the rights of man and the freedom of speech. To follow these apostles and martyrs was to forsake all the prizes of life which worldly prudence or ambition could value or covet. It was to take up the heaviest cross yet fashioned by this century as the test of Christian character and heroism; and those who bore it were far braver spirits than the men who fight our battles on land and sea. Mr. Chairman, the failure of men thus devoted to a great and holy cause was morally impossible. They could not fail. Through their courage, constancy, and faith, they gradually secured the coöperation or sympathy of the better type of men of all parties and creeds. They seriously disturbed, or broke in pieces, the great political and ecclesiastical organizations of the land; and even before this war their ideas were rapidly taking captive the popular heart. When it came, they saw, as by intuition, the character of the struggle, as the final phase of slaveholding madness and crime, and insisted upon the early adoption of that radical policy which the government at last was compelled to accept. I believe it safe to say that the moral appeals and persistent criticism of these men, and of the far greater numbers who borrowed or sympathized with their views, saved our cause from the complete control of Conservatism, and thus saved the country itself from destruction. Going at once to the heart of our great conflict, they pointed out the only remedy, and felt compelled to reprobate the failure of the government to adopt it. They judged its policy in war, as they had done in peace, in the light of its fidelity or infidelity to Human Rights. By this test they tried every man and party, and they need ask for no other rule of judgment for themselves. The administration, and the chief actors in this drama of war, of whatever political school, must be weighed in the same great balance. Not even the founders of the Republic will be spared from the trial. In their compromise with slavery in the beginning, which is now seen to have been the germ of this horrid conflict, they" swerved from the right." Posterity must so pronounce; and the record which dims the lustre of their great names will be read in the flames of this war as a warning against all future compacts with evil. Justice to public men is as certain as that truth is omnipotent. It may be delayed for a season; it may be hidden from the vision of men of little faith; but its final triumph is sure. To the world's true heroes and confessors history ever sends its word of cheer: "The good can well afford to wait; Give ermined knaves their hour of crime; The safe appeal of truth to time." SALE OF MINERAL LANDS. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 9, 1865. [The policy of vesting the fee of mineral lands in the miners, and thus promoting security of titles, permanent settlements, and thorough development, is believed to be here conclusively sustained. Unfortunately for the best interests of the country, and owing chiefly to opposition from the State of California, it has only been partially carried out, and by very cumbersome and impracticable methods. The whole subject is more fully discussed by Mr. Julian in an elaborate report from the House Committee on Public Lands during the first session of the Thirty-ninth Congress.] MR. SPEAKER,- The policy of the government in dealing with the vast mineral resources of the nation is a subject of the highest moment to the people, and invokes the early and earnest attention of Congress. No one can overstate its magnitude, considered in relation to the actual facts of our condition to-day. In seasons of prosperity and peace our country can endure much mal-administration, and very serious financial mistakes; but these are not to be hazarded in this crisis of our history. We are compassed about with perils and pressing necessities, and must husband both our wisdom and our resources if we hope to save the Republic. The measure I have had the honor to report from the Committee on Public Lands proposes a radical and entire change in the present policy of the government respecting its lands containing the precious metals. It provides for vesting the fee in individual proprietors by public and private sale, instead of retaining the title in the government and treating their occupants as tenants at will. It contemplates their survey and subdivision into small tracts, and fixes a minimum price upon them, graded according to size, locality, and mineral value. It prohibits combinations among bidders at the public sales, and the purchase of any lands by foreigners, except those who shall have declared their intention to become citizens. It provides that actual discoverers and workers of mining localities shall have the right to purchase them at the minimum price, and thus relieve themselves from the disadvantage of competing with rich capitalists. It limits the quantity of mineral land, which any single purchaser may buy, to forty acres. It requires that the gold and silver extracted shall be coined in the |