because they were in earnest, than on account of sympathy with their principles. He hated the slaveholding traitors more than he loved liberty.

This, the first regular session of the Thirty-seventh Congress, made large advances towards the entire abolition of slavery. Its measures were justly characterized by a Senator as looking to universal abolition. By its legislation and its grand debates, this Congress prepared the way for the great edict of emancipation issued by Abraham Lincoln. The great anti-slavery measures which will hand down this Congress to immortality, were-First, The abolition of slavery at the National Capitol. Second, The prohibition of slavery in all the Territories. Third, The setting free the slaves of rebels. Fourth, Giving legal authority to employ colored men, as soldiers, thus converting slaves into patriotic Union soldiers. Fifth, The enactment of an additional article of war, prohibiting any officer or person in the military or naval service, under pain of dismissal, from aiding in the arrest of any fugitive slave.

These great measures were carried after long discussion, and able and full debate. The truth of history, and justice to great principles, and those who advocate them, require that the world should know the history of these measures which have changed the character of the republic for all time to come.

The delays and inactivity of the army, and dissatisfaction with its movements, resulted in the creation by Congress, on the 18th and 19th of December, of the Joint Committee on the conduct of the war. This committee was composed of Senators Wade, Chandler, and Andrew Johuson, of Tennessee, on the part of the Senate; on Mr. Johnson being appointed Military Governor of Tennessee, Mr. Wright, of Indiana, was appointed in his place; and Messrs. Gooch, Covode, Julian and Odell, of the House.

Many of the army officers had disregarded the act of Congress giving freedom to all slaves employed to aid the rebels. Rebels and rebel officers, under flags of truce, continued to enter the Union lines, and Union officers had been guilty of surrendering to them colored men who had fled to their

camps, bringing most valuable information. This was, however, far from being a universal practice. General Curtiss, of Iowa, in command in Arkansas, ordered immediate emancipation of all slaves who had been at work for the Confederacy by consent of their masters. So did General Hunter in South Carolina, and he continued to do this until his general order of the 9th of May, 1862, declaring free all slaves in his department, consisting of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

The House had scarcely completed its organization, when Lovejoy, indignant that loyal negroes should still be sent back to slavery from the camps of the Union army, on the 4th of December, introduced a bill making it a penal offence for any officer to return a fugitive slave. Senator Wilson gave early notice of a bill in the Senate for the same purpose. The various propositions on the subject finally resulted in the enactment of an additional article of war, forbidding, on pain of dismissal from the service, the arrest of any fugitive, by any officer or person in the military or naval service of the United States.

The location of the Capital on slave territory had proved one of the most important triumphs ever achieved by the slaveholders. The powerful influence of society, local public sentiment, fashion, and the local press, in favor of the institution, was ever felt; and its power, from 1800 to 1860, could scarcely be over-estimated. Our country had long been reproached and stigmatized by the world, and the character of a pro-slavery despotism over the colored race fixed upon it, by reason of the existence of slavery at the National Capital. The friends of liberty had for years chafed and struggled in vain against this malign influence. Congress had supreme power to legislate for the District of Columbia, and was exclusively responsible for the continued existence of slavery there. Mr. Lincoln, it will be remembered, when serving his single term in Congress, had introduced a bill for its gradual abolition. The President and the friends of the Union and of liberty, at the opening of this Congress, thought it quite time this relic of barbarism at the National Capital should be destroyed. On the 4th of

December, Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, introduced a resolution that the Committee on the Judiciary be directed to consider the expediency of abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, with compensation to loyal owners.

On the 15th of December, he introduced a bill for the immediate emancipation of slaves, and the payment to their loyal owners of an average sum of $300, and providing for the appointment of commissioners to assess the sums to be paid each claimant, and appropriating one million of dollars. for the purpose.

The debates upon this bill, involved the whole subject of Slavery, the rebellion, the past, present and future of the country. Mr. Davis of Kentucky, made a very remarkable prediction to the Senate and the country, saying, "If you should liberate the slaves in the rebellious States, the moment you re-organize the white inhabitants of these States, as States of the Union, they would reduce these slaves again to a state of slavery, or they would expel them, or hunt them like wild beasts and exterminate them." Such was the humane sentiment of the exponent of slavery! And yet, recent events indicate that there was too much of truth in it.

Senator Wiley of West Virginia, opposed the bill as a part of a series of measures already initiated, looking to the universal abolition of slavery by Congress.

In the midst of this grave debate involving their liberty, many of the more intelligent colored men thronged to the galleries of the Senate, and listened, while Senators urged reasons for and against setting them free. Eager, anxious and hopeful, this impressible race could not suppress the exhibition of the intense solicitude they felt in the result. Their dark faces lighted up and saddened with the varying progress of the debate. Senator Davis could not appreciate their feelings, and he called attention to, an seemed himself astonished at their audacity. "I saw," said he, "a few days ago, several negroes thronging the open door, listening to the debate on this subject, and I suppose in a few months, they will be crowding white ladies out of the galleries!"

Some Senators desired to couple with emancipation, colonization of the colored races. Others objected to paying the

masters for the slaves, and insisted that if money was to be paid, it ought to be fairly divided between the master and the slave, on an equitable adjustment of wages for labor, and an equivalent rendered by the master. Mr. Sumner closed an eloquent speech in favor of the bill by saying, "Slavery will give way to freedom, but the good work will proceed. What God and Nature decree, rebellion cannot arrest. And as the whole wide-spread tyranny begins to tremble, then, above the din of battle, sounding from the sea, and echoing along the land, above even the exultations of victory on well fought fields, will ascend the voices of gladness and benediction, swelling from generous hearts, wherever civilization bears sway, to commemorate a sacred triumph, whose trophies instead of tattered banners, will be ransomed slaves."

The bill passed the Senate by yeas, twenty-nine, nays, six.

When the bill came up for action in the House, containing as it did an appropriation of money, under the rules, it was necessarily referred to the Committee of the whole House. As there was a large number of bills in advance of it on the calender, its enemies, although in a minority, had hopes of delaying action or defeating it.

The struggle to take up the bill came on the 10th of April, under the lead of that accomplished, adroit, and bold parliamentarian, Thaddeus Stevens. He moved that the House go into committee, which motion was agreed to, Mr. Dawes of Massachusetts, in the Chair. The Chairman called the calender in its order, and on motion of Mr. Stevens, every bill was laid aside until the bill for the abolition of slavery in the District was reached. An unsuccessful effort to lay the bill on the table was made by a member from Maryland.

F. P. Blair, Jr., in an able speech, advocated colonization in connection with abolition. He said: "It is in the gorgeous region of the American tropics, that our freedmen will find their homes; among a people without prejudice against their color, and to whom they will carry and impart new energy and vigor, in return for the weicome which will greet them, as the pledge of the future protection and friendship of our great republic; I look with confidence to this move

ment, as the true and only solution of this question of slavery."*

The venerable John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, opposed the passage of the bill. He expressed fears that its passage would strengthen the apprehension that Congress would interfere with slavery in the States, to the fear of which he attributed the war. He opposed it also, because it was a link in the chain of universal emancipation.

He was replied to by Mr. Bingham of Ohio, a gentleman of vehement, impassioned eloquence, and of an acute and discriminating mind. On the subject of human rights, he was always ardent and full of enthusiasm in favor of freedom. After alluding to the fast that none denied the constitutional power of Congress to abolish slavery, he considered the ques tion of expediency. Speaking in reply to Mr. Crittenden concerning a quotation made by the venerable member from Kentucky, from Magna Charta, he said:

"That great charter which the Barons wrung from the trembling, unwilling hands of their King six centuries ago, and which the historian of the English Constitution declares to be "the keystone of English liberty," only provided in the section which the gentleman cited, that "no freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseized or outlawed, or banished, or anyways injured, nor will we pass upon him nor send him, unless by legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.” -Magna Charta, sec. 45.†

"That provision, sir, only protected from unjust seizure, imprisonment, disseizin, outlawry, and banishment, those fortunate enough to be known as FREEMEN; it secured no privileges to vassals or slaves. Sir, our Constitution, the new Migna Charta, which the gentleman aptly says is the greatest provision for the rights of mankind and for the amelioration of their condition, rejects in its bill of rights, the restrictive word "freeman," and adopts in its stead, the more comprehensive words "no person," thus giving its protection to all, whether born free or bond. The provision of our Constitution is No person shall be deprived of life, or liberty, or property, without due process of law.' This clear recognition of the rights of all was a new gospel to mankind, something un

*Cong. Globe, 2d Sess. 37 Cong., p. 1631-p. 1635. †17 Vol. Cong. Globe, p. 1638, 2d sess. 37 Cong.