of Maryland, because, he contended, "the repeal of these sections of the act of 1807 would leave the slave-trade open to unrestrained abuses"; and by Mr. Hendricks, because he regretted to see "all the laws made by the fathers to carry out the Constitution fall, one after the other."

Mr. Sumner replied somewhat sharply. Saying to Mr. Sherman that he had abundant precedent for attaching it to an appropriation bill, he added: "I propose to remove from the statute-book odious provisions in support of slavery. Whoever is in favor of those provisions, whoever is disposed to keep alive the coastwise slave-trade, or whoever wishes to recognize it in our statutes, will naturally vote against my motion. And yet, let me say, that I am at a loss to understand how at this moment, at this stage of our history, any Senator can hesitate to unite with me in this work of expurgation and purification." In reply to Mr. Johnson he said: "I differ radically from the Senator from Maryland. He is always willing to interpret the Constitution for slavery; I interpret it for freedom. He proceeds as if those old days still continued, when slavery was installed supreme over the Supreme Court, giving immunity to slavery everywhere. The times have changed, and the Supreme Court will yet testify to the change. To me it seems clear, that, under the Constitution of the United States, no person can be held as a slave on shipboard within the national jurisdiction, and that the national flag cannot cover a slave."

Mr. Collamer of Vermont spoke earnestly in favor of its passage. Among other considerations which he urged, he said: "In my judgment, all laws, I do not care when they are attempted to be made, nor when they were made, that undertake to deal with slaves, who are persons under the Constitution and our laws, as articles of merchandise in any form, under any regulations of trade whatever, are unconstitutional; and I believe to make a law now to prohibit the carrying of slaves from one State to another for sale is totally unauthorized."

The measure, however, failed in the Committee of the Whole, and was lost by a vote of thirteen to twenty. When it came

up in the Senate, Mr. Sumner again introduced his amend ment, and with better success; for it was adopted by a vote of twenty-three to fourteen. It was concurred in by the House, and received the Executive signature on the 2d of July, 1864. By this simple amendment was closed up one of the blackest chapters of the world's unwritten history. Few tell of more atrocious and unmitigated outrages, of keener suffer ing and more protracted misery, with less to cheer and inspire hope, with more to dishearten and make desolate, than did the domestic slave-trade of Christian America.

CHAPTER XXVII.

COLORED SOLDIERS.

- PAY.

Speech of General Thomas. - Purpose New policy.

President's testimony.

- General hesitation. Protests. Secretary's Report. - Modified. - President vindicates his course. Sincerity. - Bill to amend the act of 1795. - Protest of border States. Growing conviction of need of colored soldiers.

-

Saulsbury, Carlile, Davis. Change of sentiments. - Sherman, Fessenden, Rice, Wilson. Long and violent speech of Garrett Davis. — Difficulties of detail. Slaves of loyal men. Browning, Harlan. - New bill. — Adopted. -Scruples of antislavery men. - Hale, Collamer, Doolittle. - Passed and approved. — President still hesitates. - Public opinion. — Change. — Mansfield French. Visits Washington. - Secretary of War's order. - Colored troops in free States. - Governor Andrew. - Large results. - Stevens's amend- Debate. ment for enrolling colored troops. - Amendments. -Loyal masters. Stevens's amendment

-Great diversity. adopted. Pay of colored soldiers. - Wilson's bill and resolution. - Various amendments. Fessenden, Sumner, Conness, Wilson. - Cowan's substitute. - Davis's amendment. - Differences. - Collamer, Foot. - Prolonged debate.

- New bill, Passed Senate. - Fierce debate in the House. - Amendments.

– Senate disagrees. — Committee of Conference. — Final action.

On the 8th of April, 1863, General Thomas, who had been commissioned to have charge of enlisting colored soldiers in the Southwest, addressed a company of Union troops, stationed at Lake Providence, Louisiana. In the course of his remarks he said: "You know full well, for you have been over the country, that the Rebels have sent into the field all their available fighting men, every man capable of bearing arms,— and you know they have kept at home all their slaves for the raising of subsistence for their armies in the field. In this way they can bring to bear against us all the strength of their so-called Confederate States, while we at the North can only send a portion of our fighting force, being compelled to leave behind another portion to cultivate our fields and supply the

wants of an immense army. The administration has determined to take from the Rebels this source of supply,-to take their negroes and compel them to send back a portion of their whites to cultivate their deserted plantations. . .

"I would like to raise on this river twenty regiments at least before I go back. They can guard the rear effectually. Knowing the country well, and familiar with all the roads and swamps, they will be able to track out the accursed guerillas and run them from the land. When I get regiments raised, you may sweep out into the interior with impunity. Recollect, for every regiment of blacks I raise, I raise a regiment of whites to face the foe in the field. This, fellow-soldiers, is the determined policy of the administration. You all know full well the President of the United States, though said to be slow in coming to a determination, when he once puts his foot down, it is there, and he is not going to take it up."

These words, it is to be noted, were spoken not only to announce the policy the administration had finally reached, but, singular as it may seem, to reconcile the soldiers to its adoption. Standing alone, without regard to time and purpose, they seem sensible, legitimate, and such as would naturally occur to any clear-headed and sound-thinking man or administration; but, read with that time and purpose in mind, they are doubly significant. To utilize such a potent force as was concentrated in the black race, to take such an auxiliary from the enemy and appropriate it as an efficient element in the nation's defence, appears a conclusion little less than axiomatic. It would seem to the most superficial that an administration thoroughly in earnest in the prosecution of the war on its hands could hardly do otherwise than avail itself of "those thews and sinews thus at its command, and for the most part ready and willing for its service." And yet it required two years' teaching in the hard school of stern experi ence before this sensible conclusion was reached. That it was a reasonable measure, important, if not essential, to the suc cess of the Union forces, the trial proved, and the President, though "slow" in its adoption, bore no equivocal testimony to its efficacy. A year after its adoption he thus spoke of it:

"More than a year of trial now shows no loss by it in our foreign relations, none in our home popular sentiment, none in our white military force, no loss by it anyhow or anywhere. On the contrary, it shows a gain of quite a hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, seamen, and laborers. These are palpable facts, about which, as facts, there can be no cavilling. We have the men, and we could not have had them without the measure. And now, let any Union man who complains of this measure test himself by writing down in one line that he is for subduing the Rebellion by force of arms, and in the next, that he is for taking these one hundred and thirty thousand men from the Union side and placing them where they would be best for the measure he condemns. If he cannot face his case so stated, it is only because he cannot see the truth." And yet it required two years to grasp what seemed at the outset, to many at least, so reasonable, and what the trial so conclusively established.

Nor did this hesitation result from any lack of advocates of a contrary policy. For not only did the antislavery men of the North urge with great earnestness and pertinacity the employment of negro soldiers, but several of the generals of the army, and even Mr. Lincoln's first Secretary of War, advocated it as a policy essential to success. In the preparation of his annual report for the assembling of Congress in December, 1861, Mr. Cameron had asked: "Shall the negroes, armed by their masters, be placed in the field to fight against us, or shall their labor be continually employed in producing the means for supporting the armies of the Rebellion? . . . . It is, therefore, madness to leave them in peaceful and secure possession of slave property, more valuable and efficient to them for war than forage, cotton, and military stores. Such policy would be national suicide. . . . . If it shall be found that the men who have been held by the Rebels as slaves are capable of bearing arms and performing efficient military service, it is the right and may become the duty of the government to arm and equip them." This was, however, a policy too clearly defined, if not too sensible, for the popular sentiment at that stage of the war. Neither the President, Congress, nor the