Doc. 152. DEBATE IN THE U. S. SENATE ON THE BILL FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF INSUR RECTION, AUGUST 1, 1861. THE bill to suppress insurrection and sedition being taken up: Mr. Cowan (of Pa.) moved that it be postponed till December. Mr. Bayard (Del.) thought that was the best disposition that could be made of the bill. He thought it unconstitutional. Mr. Harris (N. Y.) also spoke in favor of its postponement, and thought it very important. The bill was too important to be matured this session in the temper of the Senate and the temperature of the place. He was inclined to think that necessities of a case give a military commander all the power needed. Mr. Breckinridge (Ky.) said he should vote for its postponement. He was glad to see the Senate at last pause before one bill. He wished it were published in every newspaper in the country. He thought it would meet with universal condemnation. He thought this would abolish all State Government and destroy the last vestige of political and personal liberty. Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, contended that some bill of the kind was necessary from the exigencies of the times. The Constitution is in danger, and we have voted men and money to carry on the war to save the Constitution, and how can we justify ourselves without maturing a bill so much needed? Give the bill the goby, and let the Constitution be violated every day because we would not pass it, but leave the military to do as they please without restriction. Mr. Breckinridge (Ky.) said the drama was beginning to open, and the Senators who are urging on the war are quarrelling among themselves. The Senate had already passed a General Confiscation bill, and also a General Emancipation bill. The Police Commissioners of Baltimore were arrested without any law, and carried off to an unknown place, and the President refused to tell the House what they were arrested for and what had been done with them. Yet they call this liberty and law! Gentlemen mistake when they talk about the Union. The Union is only a means of preserving the principles of political liberty. The great principles of liberty existed long before the Union was formed. They may survive it. Let gentlemen take care that they do not sever all that remains of the Federal Government. These eternal principles of liberty, which lived long before the Union, will live forever somewhere. They must be respected. They cannot with impunity be overthrown, and if you force the people to the issue between any form of government and these priceless principles of liberty, that form of government will go down. The people will tear it asunder as the irrepressible forces of nature rend asunder all that opposes them. The Senator from Vermont de clares that this conflict must be carried on under the rules of war, and admits that some things must be done contrary to the Constitution. I desire that the country should know the fact that constitutional limitations are no longer to be regarded, and let the people once get the idea that this is a war, not under the principles of the Constitution, but a conflict in which two great people are against each other, for whom the Constitution is not, but for whom the laws of war are, and I venture to say that the brave words we hear now about subjugation and conquest, treason and traitors, will be glibly altered the next time the Representatives of States meet under the dome of the Capitol. Then if the Constitution is really to be put aside, and the laws of war are to govern, why not act upon it practically. I do not hold that the clause of the Constitution which authorizes Congress to declare war applies to any internal difficulties; nor do I believe that the Constitution of the United States ever contemplated the preservation of the Union by one-half of the States warring on the other half. It provides for putting down insurrection, but it does not provide for the raising of armies by one-half of two political communities of this Confederacy for the purpose of subjugating the other half. If this is a case of war, why not treat it like war? Practically it is treated so. The prisoners are not hung as rebels. It is a war, and, in my opinion, not only an unhappy war, but an unconstitutional war. Why, then, does the Administration refuse to send or receive a flag of truce, and all those acts which might at least ameliorate the unhappy condition in which we are placed? So much, then, we know. We know that admitted violations of the Constitution have been made, and are justified, and are, by legislation, proposed still further to confer the authority to do acts not authorized or warranted by the Constitution. We have it openly avowed that the Constitution, which is a bond at least between those States that adhere to it, is no longer to be regarded as that bond of Union. It is not enough to tell me that it has been violated by seceded States. It has not been violated by those States that have not seceded, and if the Constitution is thus to be put aside, these States may pause to inquire what is to become of their liberties. Mr. President, we are on the wrong track, and we have been from the beginning, and the people are beginning to see it. We have been hurling hundreds to death. The blood of Americans has been shed by their own hands, and for what? They have shown their prowess and bravery alike, and for what? It has been to carry out principles that three-fourths of them abhor. For the principles contained in this bill, and continually avowed on the floor of this Senate, are not shared, I will venture to say, by three-fourths of your army. I said, sir, we have been on the wrong track. Nothing but utter ruin to the North, to the South, to the East, and to the Mr. Baker-Pick out that one which is in your judgment most clearly so. Mr. Breckinridge-They are all, in my opinion, so equally atrocious that I dislike to discriminate. I will send the Senator the bill, and I tell him that every section except the last, in my opinion, violates the Constitution of the United States; and of that last section I express no opinion. Mr. Baker-I had hoped that that respectful suggestion to the Senator would enable him to point out to me one, in his judgment, most clearly so, for they are not all alike--they are not equally atrocious. West will follow the prosecution of this contest. | I would propose, with my habitual respect for You may look forward to innumerable armies him, (for nobody is more courteous and more and countless treasure to be spent for the pur- gentlemanly,) to ask him if he will be kind pose of carrying on this contest, but it will end enough to tell me what single particular proviin leaving us just where we are now; for, if sion there is in this bill which is in violation of the forces of the Union are successful, what on the Constitution of the United States, which I earth will be done with them after they are have sworn to support-one distinct, single conquered? Are not gentlemen perfectly satis- proposition in the bill. fied that they have mistaken a people for a fac- Mr. Breckinridge-I will state, in general tion? Have they not become satisfied that it terms, that every one of them is, in my opinis necessary to subjugate, conquer, even to ex-ion, flagrantly so, unless it may be the last. terminate a people? Don't you know it? I will send the Senator the bill, and he may Don't everybody know it? Does not the world comment on the sections. know it? Let us pause, then, and let the Congress of the United States respond to the uprising feeling all over this land in favor of peace. War is separation, in the language of an eminent Senator, now no more. It is disunion,-eternal, final disunion. We have separation now, and it is only much worse by war, and the utter extinction of all those sentiments which might lead to reunion. But let the war go on, and soon in addition to the moans of the widows and orphans all over this land, you will hear the cry of distress from those who want for food, and the comforts of life. The people will be unable to pay the grinding taxes which a fanatical spirit will attempt to impose upon them. Let the war go on, and the Pacific slope, now doubtless devoted to the Union, when they find the burden of separate condi- Mr. Baker-Let me try then, if I must gentions, then they will separate. Let it go on, eralize as the Senator does, to see if I can get until they see the beautiful pictures of the Con- the scope and meaning of this bill. It is a bill federacy beaten out of all shape and comeliness providing that the President of the United by the war, and they will turn aside in disgust. States may declare, by proclamation, in a cerFight for twelve months, and this feeling will tain given state of fact, certain territory within develop itself. Fight for twelve months more, the United States to be in a condition of insurrecand you will have three Confederacies instead tion and war; which proclamation shall be exof two. Fight for twelve months more, and we tensively published within the district to which will have four. But I will not enlarge upon this. it relates. That is the first proposition. I ask I am quite aware that what I say will be re-him if that is unconstitutional? That is a plain ceived with sneers of disgust by gentlemen from the North-west and the East, but the future will determine who is right and who is wrong. We are making a record here. I am met by the sneers of nearly all those who surround me. I state my opinions with no approving voices, and surrounded by scowls; but the time will come when history will put her private seal upon these proceedings, and I am perfectly willing to abide her final judgment. Mr. Baker-Mr. President, it has not been my fortune to participate in at any length, indeed, not to hear very much of the discussion which has been going on-more I think in the hands of the Senator from Kentucky than anybody else upon all the propositions connected with this war; and, as I really feel as sincerely as he can an earnest desire to preserve the Constitution of the United States for everybody, South as well as North, I have listened for some little time past to what he has said, with an earnest desire to apprehend the point of his objection to this particular bill. And now waiving what I think is the elegant but loose declamation in which he chooses to indulge Mr. Breckinridge-Very nearly. There are ten of them. The Senator can select which he pleases. question. Is it unconstitutional to give power to the President to declare a portion of the territory of the United States in a state of insurrection or rebellion? He will not dare to say it is. Mr. Breckinridge-Mr. President, the Senator from Oregon is a very adroit debater, and he discovers, of course, the great advantage he would have if I were to allow him, occupying the floor, to ask me a series of questions, and then have his own criticisms made on them. When he has closed his speech, if I deem it necessary, I may make some reply. At present, however, I will answer that question. The State of Illinois, I believe, is a military district; the State of Kentucky is a military district. In my judgment, the President has no authority, and, in my judgment, Congress has no right to confer upon the President authority, to declare a State in a condition of insurrection or rebellion. Mr. Baker-In the first place, the bill does not say a word about States. That is the first answer. Mr. Breckinridge-Does not the Senator know, in fact, that those States compose military districts? It might as well have said "States" as to describe what is a State. It is our duty to advance, if we can; to suppress insurrection; to put down rebellion; to dissipate the rising; to scatter the enemy; and when we have done so, to preserve in the terms of the bill, the liberty, lives, and property of the people of the country, by just and fair police regu Mr. Baker-I do; and that is the reason why I suggest to the honorable Senator that this criticism about States does not mean any thing at all. That is the very point. The ob-lations. I ask the Senator from Indiana, (Mr. jection certainly ought not to be that he can Lane,) when we took Monterey, did we not do declare a part of a State in insurrection and it there? When we took Mexico, did we not not the whole of it. In point of fact the Con- do it there? Is it not a part, a necessary and stitution of the United States, and the Congress indispensable part, of war itself, that there shall of the United States acting upon it, are not be military regulations over the country contreating of States, but of the territory com- quered and held? Is that unconstitutional? prising the United States; and I submit once I think it was a mere play of words that the more to his better judgment that it cannot be | Senator indulged in when he attempted to anunconstitutional to allow the President to de-swer the Senator from New York. I did not clare a county, or a part of a county, or a understand the Senator from New York to town, or a part of a town, or a part of a State, mean any thing else substantially but this, that or the whole of a State, or two States, or five the Constitution deals generally with a state of States, in a condition of insurrection, if, in his peace, and that when war is declared, it leaves judgment, that be the fact. That is not wrong. the condition of public affairs to be determined In the next place, it provides that that being by the law of war, in the country where the so, the military commander in that district war exists. It is true that the Constitution of may make and publish such police rules and the United States does adopt the law of war as regulations as he may deem necessary to sup- a part of the instrument itself, during the conpress the rebellion and restore order and pre-tinuance of war. The Constitution does not proserve the lives and property of citizens. I sub-vide that spies shall be hung. Is it unconstitumit to him, if the President of the United tional to hang a spy? There is no provision States has power, or ought to have power, to for it in terms in the Constitution; but nobody suppress insurrection and rebellion, is there denies the right, the power, the justice. Why? any better way to do it, or is there any other? Because it is part of the law of war. The ConThe gentleman says, do it by the civil power. stitution does not provide for the exchange of Look at the fact. The civil power is utterly prisoners; yet it may be done under the law overwhelmed; the courts are closed; the judges of war. Indeed the Constitution does not probanished. Is the President not to execute the vide that a prisoner may be taken at all; yet law? Is he to do it in person or by his mili- his captivity is perfectly just and constitutional. tary commanders? Are they to do it with It seems to me that the Senator does not, will regulation or without it? That is the only not, take that view of the subject. Again, sir, question. Mr. President, the honorable Sena- when a military commander advances, as Í tor says there is a state of war. The Senator trust, if there are no more unexpected great from Vermont agrees with him; or rather, he reverses, he will advance, through Virginia agrees with the Senator from Vermont in that. and occupies the country, there, perhaps as What then? There is a state of public war; here, the civil law may be silent; there pernone the less war because it is urged from the haps the civil officers may flee as ours have other side; not the less war because it is un- been compelled to flee. What then? If the just; not the less war because it is a war of civil law is silent, who shall control and reguinsurrection and rebellion. It is still war; and late the conquered district-who but the miliI am willing to say it is public war-public, as tary commander? As the Senator from Illinois contra-distinguished from private war. What has well said, shall it be done by regulation or then? Shall we carry that war on? Is it his without regulation? Shall the general, or the duty as a Senator to carry it on? If so, how? colonel, or the captain, be supreme, or shall he By armies under command; by military or be regulated and ordered by the President of ganization and authority, advancing to suppress the United States? That is the sole question. insurrection and rebellion. Is that wrong? Is The Senator has put it well. I agree that we that unconstitutional? Are we not bound to ought to do all we can to limit, to restrain, to do with whoever levies war against us as we fetter the abuse of military power. Bayonets would do if he was a foreigner? There is no are at best illogical arguments. I am not willdistinction as to the mode of carrying on war;ing, except as a case of sheerest necessity, ever we carry on war against an advancing army just the same, whether it be from Russia or from South Carolina. Will the honorable Senator tell me it is our duty to stay here, within fifteen miles of the enemy, seeking to advance upon us every hour, and talk about nice questions of constitutional construction as to whether it is war or merely insurrection? No, sir. I to permit a military commander to exercise authority over life, liberty, and property. But, sir, it is part of the law of war; you cannot carry in the rear of your army your courts; you cannot organize juries; you cannot have trials accorded to the forms and ceremonial of the common law amid the clangor of arms, and somebody must enforce police regulations in a conquered or occupied district. I ask the Senator from Kentucky again respectfully, is that unconstitutional; or, if in the nature of war it must exist, even if there be no law passed by us to allow it, is it unconstitutional to regulate it? That is the question, to which I do not think he will make a clear and distinct reply. Now, sir, I have shown him two sections of the bill, which I do not think he will repeat earnestly are unconstitutional. I do not think that he will seriously deny that. it is perfectly constitutional to limit, to regulate, to control, at the same time to confer and restrain authority in the hands of military commanders. I think it is wise and judicious to regulate it by virtue of powers to be placed in the hands of the President by law. Now, a few words, and a few only, as to the Senator's predictions. The Senator from Kentucky stands up here in a manly way in opposition to what he sees is the overwhelming sentiment of the Senate, and utters reproof, malediction, and prediction combined. Well, sir, it is not every prediction that is prophecy. It is the easiest thing in the world to do; there is nothing easier, except to be mistaken when we have predicted. I confess, Mr. President, that I would not have predicted three weeks ago the disasters which | have overtaken our arms; and I do not think (if I were to predict now) that six months hence the Senator will indulge in the same tone of prediction which is his favorite key now. I would ask him, what would you have us do now-a Confederate army within twenty miles of us, advancing or threatening to advance to overwhelm your Government; to shake the pillars of the Union; to bring it around your head, if you stay here, in ruins? Are we to stop and talk about an uprising sentiment in the North against the war? Are we to predict evil, and retire from what we predict? Is not the manly part to go on as we have begun, to raise money, and levy armies, to organize them, to prepare to advance; when we do advance, to regulate that advance by all the laws and regulations that civilization and humanity will allow in time of battle? Can we do any thing more? To talk to us about stopping is idle; we will never stop. Will the Senator yield to rebellion? Will he shrink from armed insurrection? Will his State justify it? Will its better public opinion allow it? Shall we send a flag of truce? What would he have? Or would he conduct this war so feebly, that the whole world would smile at us in derision? What would he have? These speeches of his, sown broadcast over the land what clear, distinct meaning have they? Are they not intended for disorganization in our very midst? Are they not intended to dull our weapons? Are they not intended to destroy our zeal? Are they not intended to animate our enemies? Sir, are they not words of brilliant, polished treason, even in the very Capitol of the Confederacy? [Manifestations of applause in the galleries.] The Presiding Officer (Mr. Anthony in the chair)-Order! Mr. Baker-What would have been thought if, in another Capitol, in another Republic, in a yet more martial age, a Senator as grave, not more eloquent or dignified than the Senator from Kentucky, yet with the Roman purple flying over his shoulders, had risen in his place, surrounded by all the illustrations of Roman glory, and declared that advancing Hannibal was just, and that Carthage ought to be dealt with in terms of peace? What would have been thought if, after the battle of Cannæ, a Senator there had risen in his place and denounced every levy of the Roman people, every expenditure of its treasury, and every appeal to the old recollections and the old glories? Sir, a Senator, himself learned far more than myself in such lore, tells me, in a voice that I am glad is audible, that he would have been hurled from the Tarpeian rock. It is a grand commentary upon the American Constitution that we permit these words to be uttered. I ask the Senator to recollect, too, what, save to send aid and comfort to the enemy, do these predictions of his amount to? Every word thus uttered falls as a note of inspiration upon every Confederate ear. Every sound thus uttered is a word (and, falling from his lips, a mighty word) of kindling and triumph to a foe that determines to advance. For me, I have no such word as a Senator to utter. For me, amid temporary defeat, disaster, disgrace, it seems that my duty calls me to utter another word, and that word is, bold, sudden, forward, determined war, according to the laws of war, by armies, by military commanders clothed with full power, advancing with all the past glories of the Republic urging them on to conquest. I do not stop to consider whether it is subjugation or not. It is compulsory obedience-not to my will; not to yours, sir; not to the will of any one man; not to the will of any one State; but compulsory obedience to the Constitution of the whole country. The Senator chose the other day again and again to animadvert on a single expression in a little speech which I delivered before the Senate, in which I took occasion to say that if the people of the rebellious States would not govern theinselves as States, they ought to be governed as Territories. The Senator knew full well then, for I explained it twice-he knows full well now-that on this side of the Chamber; nay, in this whole Chamber; nay, in this whole North and West; nay, in all the loyal States in all their breadth, there is not a man among us all who dreams of causing any man in the South to submit to any rule, either as to life, liberty, or property, that we ourselves do not willingly agree to yield to. Did he ever think of that? Subjugation for what? When we subjugate South Carolina, what shall we do? We shall compel its obedience to the Constitution of the United States; that is all. Why play upon words? We do not mean, we have never said, any more. If it be slavery that true to the Union to the last of her blood and men should obey the Constitution their fathers her treasure. There may be there some disfought for, let it be so. If it be freedom, it is affected; there may be some few men there freedom equally for them and for us. We pro- who would "rather rule in hell than serve in pose to subjugate rebellion into loyalty; we heaven." There are such men everywhere. propose to subjugate insurrection into peace; There are a few men there who have left the we propose to subjugate confederate anarchy South for the good of the South; who are perinto Constitutional Union liberty. The Sena- verse, violent, destructive, revolutionary, and tor well knows that we propose no more. I opposed to social order. A few, but a very ask him, I appeal to his better judgment, now, few, thus formed and thus nurtured, in Caliwhat does he imagine we intend to do, if for-fornia and in Oregon, both persistently entunately we conquer Tennessee or South Caro- deavor to create and maintain mischief; but lina-call it "conquer," if you will, sir-what the great portion of our population are loyal to do we propose to do? They will have their the core and in every chord of their hearts. courts still, they will have their ballot-boxes They are offering through me-more to their still, they will have their elections still, they own Senators, every day from California, and, will have their representatives upon this floor indeed, from Oregon-to add to the legions of still, they will have taxation and representation this country by the hundred and the thousand. still, they will have the writ of habeas corpus They are willing to come thousands of miles still, they will have every privilege they ever with their arms on their shoulders, at their had and all we desire. When the Confederate own expense, to share with the best offering armies are scattered, when their leaders are of their heart's blood in the great struggle of banished from power, when the people return Constitutional liberty. I tell the Senator that to a late repentant sense of the wrong they his predictions, sometimes for the South, somehave done to a Government they never felt but times for the middle States, sometimes for the in benignancy and blessing, then the Constitu- North-east, and then wandering away in airy tion made for all will be felt by all, like the visions out to the far Pacific, about the dread descending rains from heaven which bless all | of our people, as for loss of blood and treasure, alike. Is that subjugation? To restore what provoking them to disloyalty, are false in senwas, as it was, for the benefit of the whole timent, false in fact, and false in loyalty. The country and of the whole human race, is all we Senator from Kentucky is mistaken in them desire and all we can have. Gentlemen talk all. Five hundred million dollars! What about the North-east. I appeal to Senators then? Great Britain gave more than two from the North-east, is there a man in all your thousand millions in the great battle for conStates who advances upon the South with any stitutional liberty which she led at one time other idea but to restore the Constitution of almost single-handed against the world. Five the United States in its spirit and its unity? I hundred thousand men! What then? We never heard that one. I believe no man in- have them; they are ours; they are the childulges in any dream of inflicting there any dren of the country. They belong to the wrong to public liberty; and I respectfully tell whole country; they are our sons; our kinsthe Senator from Kentucky that he persistent- men; and there are many of us who will give ly, carnestly I will not say wilfully-mis. them all up before we abate one word of our represents the sentiment of the North and just demand, or will retreat one inch from the West when he attempts to teach these doc-line which divides right from wrong. Sir, it trines to the Confederates of the South. Sir, is not a question of men or money in that while I am predicting, I will tell you another sense. All the men, all the money, are, in our thing. This threat about money and men judgment, well bestowed in such a cause. amounts to nothing. Some of the States which When we give them we know their value. have been named in that connection, I know Knowing their value well, we give them with well. I know, as my friend from Illinois will the more pride and the more joy. Sir, how bear me witness, his own State very well. I can we retreat? Sir, how can we make peace? am sure that no temporary defeat, no momen- Who shall treat? What commissioners? Who tary disaster, will swerve that State either would go? Upon what terms? Where is to from its allegiance to the Union, or from its be your boundary line? Where the end of the determination to preserve it. It is not with us principles we shall have to give up? What a question of money or of blood; it is a ques- will become of constitutional government? tion involving considerations higher than these. What will become of public liberty? What When the Senator from Kentucky speaks of the of past glories? What of future hopes? Shall Pacific, I see another distinguished friend from we sink into the insignificance of the grave-a Illinois, now worthily representing one of the degraded, defeated, emasculated people, frightStates on the Pacific, (Mr. McDougall,) who will ened by the results of one battle, and scared bear me witness that I know that State too, at the visions raised by the imagination of the well. I take the liberty-I know I but utter Senator from Kentucky upon this floor? No, his sentiments in advance-joining with him, sir; a thousand times, no, sir! We will rally to say that that State, quoting from the pas--if, indeed, our words be necessary-we will sage the gentleman himself has quoted, will be rally the people, the loyal people, of the whole |