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which have been made since we last met, by fraud and force, to crush out the institution of slavery. I need not point you to the black recruiting system in Maryland and Missouri. I need not rehearse the orders of generals and subordinates, all working to this end, regardless of the rights of property or local sovereignty. Slavery hangs precariously by a hair, in Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, and Florida. Even in old Kentucky, where her loyal people cared less for it and more for their State right over it, anti-slavery is at work. Wherever in our lines slavery yet exists, it is comparatively free and altogether profitless. It works at its own will, and not at the will of the master. Outside of our lines within the Gulf States-slaves once worth $2,000 are now only worth their $100 in gold; and this depreciation will go on if our armies continue to penetrate the South. If it thus go on, where will it end? In the grave of the slave! Read the accounts of mortality among the blacks, especially those in the military. Each camp is a hospital. The deserted families perish by their removal from their homes, by vice and starvation. We of this side have no power to stop it. The war keeps it going. For this condition of the negro let the Abolition party and its savage counterpart South answer to God and the country. To the horrors and calamities of the whites growing out of this war are to be added the miseries and destruction of the blacks; and this indictment of high crime will not be found against the northern Democracy, but against its revilers North, who divided our Union, and its enemies South, who divided our party.

In the forthcoming election for Chief Magistrate you will find the Democracy making no issue about slavery. If it is dying or dead, as you allege, you will find them striving their utmost to preserve what they can of local and personal liberty out of the chaos of this conflict. We have been the champions of local and State liberty, not because slavery was guaranteed by it. No, sir. We have not championed slavery. We never placed it in our northern constitutions. I would fain have seen slavery die, if die it must, by the unforced action of the States, as it has died in the now free States, and not by the rough usages of war, which destroys the slave with slavery; not by usurpations upon the rights of the States and the people, which destroy both freedom and slavery and slave, but by the sovereign intelligence of the people of the States, who alone are responsible for the existence of their own domestic institutions. I am not insensible to the signs of the times. Judging by what we daily see here in this House, the border States, through the blandishments of power, the fear of ruin, the tyranny of the bayonet, and the corruption of greenbacks, are, I think, gradually being persuaded to yield before the genius of universal emancipation! The music of the old Union is hushed in the bugles of war. The northern Democracy, in struggling to preserve the institutions of those States, and in doing which they have been and are yet in sympathy with their only proper representatives, have done so from no love of slavery; but because, in the language of the Chicago platform, they would, by preserving State institutions, "preserve the balance of power, on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depended." When the party in power, by edict and bayonet, by sham election and juggling proclamation, drag down slavery, they drag down in the spirit of ruthless iconoclasm the very

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genius of our civil polity, local self-government. They strike constitutional liberty in striking at domestic slavery. Hence they must abolish habeas corpus when they stab the hated institution. They must invade bills of right when they invade State rights. When next you meet us at the polls you shall answer for the perfection of our political fabric which you have marred, and the endurance of which you have imperilled. No more wrangling about pro-slavery or anti-slavery. The question shall be, the old order with Democracy to administer it, or continued revolution with destructives to guide it; the old Union with as much of local sovereignty as may be saved from the abrasion of war, or a new abolition and military unity of territory, with debt, tyranny, and fanaticism as its trinity.

HISTORIC LESSONS FOR CIVIL WAR.

THE NATION'S HOPE AMNESTY-SOUTHERN UNIONISTS-PLAN OF THE PRESIDENT AND THE BILLS OF RECONSTRUCTION-ONE-TENTH PLAN—THE OATH-PRESIDENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS -VITALITY OF STATE GOVERNMENTS-RECONSTRUCTION-CIVIL WARS OF GREECE, ROME, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND, HOW RECONCILED-VICTORY WITHOUT REPRISALS.

"We know of no great revolution which might not have been prevented by compromise early and graciously made. Firmness is a great virtue in public affairs, but it has its proper sphere. Conspiracies and insurrections in which small minorities are engaged, the outbreakings of popular violence unconnected with any extensive project or any durable principle, are best repressed by vigor and decision. To shrink from them is to make them formidable. But no wise ruler will confound the pervading taint with the slight local isolation. The neglect of this distinction has been fatal even to governments strong in the power of the sword."-Macaulay.

The bill of Hon. Henry Winter Davis, "to guarantee to certain States, whose governments are usurped or overthrown, a Republican form of government," presented an opportunity to discuss the problems of reconstruction.

Mr. Cox, on the 4th day of May, 1864, delivered the speech which follows. Mr. Davis answered the argument against the one-tenth policy in the suffrage of the new States, by abandoning it, and substituting the majority.

Mr. Cox said: Mr. Speaker, my heart's desire and prayer to God is for peace and union to this distracted land. While urging undiminished and increased exertions by our army and navy to secure union, I have been ever ready to heal the wounds and check the ravages of war by all rational methods used among civilized nations. To those who can entertain but one idea at a time, this position has seemed inconsistent; but to those who have read history, it will appear that war is made for peace, and that to consummate peace in the midst of war, and to restore harmony in civil or international conflict, negotiation and friendliness are indispensable.

During the long and anxious years I have served here-from almost a youth to almost middle age-I have never failed to warn against the

great crisis of force which came in 1861. These auguries have been unhappily too fully fulfilled. What could be done by an humble representative to avert this strife, that I did. My constituents know this; and I might be content to leave this arena, conscious of their approbation for duty done. Since this war began I have sought, but found no place for compromise in the dominant party. Hence I have mournfully, though constantly by vote and voice, upheld the sword, lest even a worse alternative eternal separation and prolonged strife-should be our fate. The miseries which this war has entailed, have not been the work of the Northern Democracy; and if disunion comes through the open doors of Janus -if recognition of Southern independence comes through war or its disasters-the Democracy are not responsible for the odium, and with my word and aid shall never be held responsible. Those who are swift to recognize Southern independence may do so; but by all the memories of our conflicts with secession and abolition, I will never, never, be counted among those who have aided in the dismemberment of the Republic. Would that I could see in our present policy a gleam of hope for our future. How gladly would I hail it! But until that policy is reversed, all our future is shrouded. Like my distinguished friend from Indiana [Mr. VOORHEES], whose dirge-like speech still haunts my memory, I see in the continuance of the present misrule only the throes of this nation, writhing in the despair of dissolution. The bloody sweat, the feverish pulse, the delirious raving, and the muscular agony, go before that prostration, which "Death the Skeleton and Time the Shadow" have consummated for all republics, which have in evil hours yielded the sceptre of the people to the grasp of Passion and the greed of Power. The eloquent requiem which my friend pronounced, sounding like the wail of the bereaved among the tombs of the dead, should, if heeded, teach us, before too late, how beyond all price is the boon which is passing from us forever. He finds hope in autumn, for the spring will bring its bloom; hope in the storm, for the cloud will pass and the sun shine again; but no hope in the grave of our Republic-none, none for our dying Republic. Mr. Speaker, sadly as his thoughts have impressed me, I can yet see some hope for our Nation; for I believe in the immortality of civilization and the grace of the Christian religion. While to him the future is black with a pall, I look beyond his prospect of the hearse and the tomb-the mourners and the darkened window-to the resurrection! The grave shall lose its sting, and death its victory. The mourner shall be comforted. The light of a better dawn shall enter into the darkened chamber. I too go to Holy Writ as he did, but I go for the purpose of cheer and not of despondency; for I read there that "Good tidings shall bind up the broken-hearted, and to them that mourn in Zion, give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and the garden causeth things that are sown in it to spring forth." "Go through, go through the gates, prepare ye the way of the People; cast up, cast the highway; lift up a standard for the PEOPLE!" Sir, that standard for the people shall be high advanced! My friend himself will bear it to the West. In the honest yeomanry of the Mississippi Valley, and in the

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eternal principles of constitutional Democracy and regulated freedom, do I read a more cheering horoscope! I will not, do not, and cannot despair. I would rather die in my simple faith in popular intelligence and republican institutions, than yield my heart to the sadness which freights each passing hour with its gloom. There is one hope left. If the bayonet shall be unfixed at our polls, if no persuasive appliances of money shall attaint an honest election, I do not despair of a verdict in favor of that party whose principles I have loved for their national history and unsectional spirit. Fond as I am of historic research, I cannot follow my friend in mourning over the dust of departed empire. I read in the decline and fall of republican governments lessons of wisdom and hope for our own guidance. In the remarks which I shall submit, I propose to show from history how statesmanship has saved the fallen columns of constitutional liberty, how the victories of war have been crowned by the more renowned, important, and difficult victories of peace, and how allegiance has been rekindled by the sweet breath of kindness fanning the almost dying embers of patriotism. This may seem like a thankless and useless task, in view of the convulsions and prejudices of the hour; but the issue demands such an exposition. That issue is-shall freedom, peace, and union be restored by a change of rulers and policy, or shall we set aside the teachings of the past, and permit the work of disintegration and ruin to go on?

The Executive has proposed an amnesty. I would not turn away from its contemplation. As each day may offer the chance of conciliation, I welcome any sign of peace, though the bow of promise be dim and unsubstantial, and though it be wreathed over the very cataract of our national doom! The message of the President should be welcomed, not so much for what it is, as for what it pretends to be. It is his first adventure beyond the line of force into the field of conciliation. As his former policy showed a will to change and crush civil relations by the iron hand, so the present policy is but its continuance; for he only draws over the mailed hand a silken, though transparent glove. His plan is the will of the commander, while pretending to be the wisdom of the civilian. The war power, as illustrated by the administration, has no more foundation in our Government than this peace power, assuming to pardon crime without conviction, and revivify dead States which are indestructible. But duty demands a thorough sifting of this pretentious amnesty. The Democratic party have worn the stigma, as it has been deemed, of leaning too much toward conciliation. Our gravest fault has been that we are suspected somewhat of having read the Sermon on the Mount, and that we have believed in the gentleness and effectiveness of our religion. Even such Democrats as have favored the superaddition of clemency to the enginery of war as a means of reunion have been ostracized, while those who have found no elements of union save in affection, without coercion, have been imprisoned and exiled. It would be ungracious in us, therefore, to dismiss even this semblance of pacification without examination. Let us examine it in the light of history. If it be right, it shall not be rejected because it comes from a President not in our favor. If it sound hollow-if it be the Trojan horse, full of armed men, ready to surprise

the citadel of our Constitution, let us drag its insidious features to the light for condemnation.

To test the genuineness of this amnesty: Five months have gone, but we see no signs of thousands of southern citizens rushing to embrace this amnesty. Indeed, it is conceded that the rebellion is now more formidable than ever. Unlike the acts of grace granted by kings to their recusant subjects, of which history is full, there is no general taking of the oath, no genuine movement toward the restoration of the seceded States, but a fiercer spirit of resistance, produced by the unwise and exasperating policy of the Executive. The President's plan has been widely published in the papers South, as the "Richmond Sentinel" says, to "animate their popular patriotism." The forgiveness offered by the President is deemed a mockery and its terms an insult. What a delusion to hold out such a Dead Sea apple-ashes to the lip, and hardly fruit to the eye. How many people in the North would take an oath to support those negro policies of the past two years! I never, never would. I would as soon think of swearing allegiance to secession. I would as soon tie my soul to the body of death. And can you expect the southern people in their present temper, saddened by loss and irate with revenge, to do what our constituentsone million and a half of northern voters-would scorn us for doing? There could have been no hope of a returning South by such a plan. It is an amnesty which is a juggle, for it pleases no one who is to be reached. It is based on a proclamation which is a delusion, for no one was freed by it whom our armies had not enfranchised. It is the old unsoundness, newly daubed with untempered mortar. There is one chief defect in the President's plan. It is the structure built upon his proclamation of emancipation. The same defect is observable in the bill of the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. DAVIS]. That too is based on the one-tenth system and the policy of forced emancipation. He proposes to guarantee to certain States, whose governments have been usurped or overthrown, a republican form of government." This is the title of his bill. I deny, first, that these State governments are overthrown; and second, that his plan substitutes a republican form. His plan is to appoint provisional brigadier governors, who are to be charged with the civil administration until a State Government shall be recognized as his bill provides. He requires an oath to the Constitution to be taken, which is very well; but by whom? By one-tenth of the people. They shall be sufficient to construct the new State, whose republican form of government is already dictated to them by the bill of the gentleman from Maryland. They "shall" abolish slavery. Then the other steps are to be taken, and the new republican State is to be recognized. In some of its features this bill is an improvement upon the rickety establishment proposed by the President; but it is obnoxious to the same objection. It is a usurpation of the sovereignty of the people by the Federal functionaries, and it regards the old States as forever destroyed. The plans proposed are objectionable, because of the mode of construction and the kind of fabric to be rebuilt. As the emancipation proclamation, or the emancipation act of the gentleman, can never be reconciled with the normal control of the States over their domestic institutions, so all oaths to sustain the same are oaths to subvert the old governments, Federal and State. The oath required, both of loyal and

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