MR. PRESIDENT,--Our country is in peril. This is much to say, but it
must be said, and we must all govern ourselves accordingly. More than
ever before, the time has come for an earnest, absolute, controlling
patriotism. This is the lesson of the day. In presence of such peril,
and under the weight of such duties, there is no pride of opinion
which I would not freely sacrifice, nor can I stand on any order of
proceeding. I ask no questions, and I make no terms. Show me how an
important measure can be secured, which I think vital to the country,
and I shall spare no effort to secure it.
Rules are for protection, for defence, and to facilitate business.
If in any way they become an impediment, they cease to perform their
natural office, and I can easily abandon them, especially when my
country may suffer. Therefore, Sir, I am only slightly impressed by the
argument that our information with regard to the President is informal.
It is enough that a measure we all have at heart as essential to
national life may fail to receive his constitutional approval, unless
modified in advance by supplementary statute. Anxious for this measure,
I think how it may be secured, rather than how the opinions of the
President have become known to us.
Of course, Sir, I cannot share the doubts attributed to the President.
To me they seem groundless and fallacious. Waiving all question of
their accuracy as an interpretation of the Constitution, even in
criminal proceedings, I cannot forbear saying that they proceed on
the mistaken idea of a procedure by _indictment_ and not by _war_,
subjecting the country to all the constraint of a criminal trial when
the exigency requires the ample latitude of war. If soldiers are sent
forth to battle, if fields are occupied as camps, and houses are
occupied as hospitals, without permission of the owners, it is under
the War Powers of Congress, or, in other words, the belligerent rights
of this Government. And it is by virtue of these same belligerent
rights that the property of an enemy is taken. Now, if he be an enemy,
is there in the Constitution any check upon these rights? Whether you
choose to take property for life or beyond life, the Constitution
is indifferent; for all constitutional limitations are entirely
inapplicable to belligerent rights. There are express words ordaining
that you must not “abridge the freedom of speech or of the press,” or
“infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms”; nor can you
take “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” And yet,
wherever your armies move, and elsewhere too, you do all these very
things in the exercise of acknowledged belligerent rights. As plainly,
the right of confiscation, whether for life or beyond life, is also
yours.
Unhappily, Sir, our country is engaged in war,--terrible, relentless,
unquestionable war,--and if we would not discard success, it must be
prosecuted as war, in the full exercise of belligerent rights. If we
were dealing with sporadic cases of treason, with simple sedition, or
with a mere outbreak, our process would be limited by the Constitution;
but with an enemy before us, lashed into fury and led on by “Até hot
from Hell,” where is the limit to the powers to be employed? I remember
that Burke, in his great effort on Conciliation with America, says: “It
looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of
criminal justice to this great public contest; I do not know the method
of drawing up an indictment against an whole people.”[106] But when,
on account of a provision in the Constitution obviously intended only
for the protection of _the citizen_, you refuse to take the property
of _an enemy in open war_, then do you substitute the safeguards of
criminal justice for war, thus voluntarily weakening your armies and
diminishing your power. I am tempted to say, that, in devotion to the
form of the Constitution, you sacrifice its substance. I might say,
that, in misapplying the text of the Constitution, you sacrifice the
Constitution itself.
Pardon me for seeming, even briefly, to argue this question. I do it
only because I would not have my vote misunderstood. I shall support
the proposition, not because I concur with it, but because its adoption
will help secure the approval of the bill that has so much occupied the
attention of Congress and the hopes of the country.
Mr. President, I have never, from the beginning, disguised my
conviction that the most important part of the bill concerns
Emancipation. To save this great part, to secure this transcendent
ally, to establish this assurance of victory, and to obtain for my
country this lofty crown of prosperity and glory, I willingly abandon
all the rest. The navigator is called sometimes to save his ship by
casting part of the cargo into the sea.
But whatever the difference between the President and Congress, there
are two points on which there is no difference. Blacks are to be
employed, and slaves are to be freed. In this legislative proclamation
the President and Congress will unite. Together they will deliver it to
the country and to the world.
It is an occasion of just congratulation, that the long debates of the
session have at last ripened into a measure which I do not hesitate to
declare more important than any victory achieved by our arms. Thank
God, the new levies will be under an inspiration which cannot fail. It
is the idea of Freedom, which, in spite of all discomfiture, past or
present, must give new force to the embattled armies of the Republic,
making their conflicts her own.
Sir, from this day forward the war will be waged with new hopes and
new promises. A new power is enlisted, incalculable in influence,
strengthening our armies, weakening the enemy, awakening the sympathies
of mankind, and securing the favor of a benevolent God. The infamous
Order No. 3, which has been such a scandal to the Republic, is
rescinded. The slave everywhere can hope. Beginning to do justice, we
shall at last deserve success.
The original bill and the explanatory joint resolution were
returned to the Senate together, with the approval of the
President, July 17th, being the last day of the session, and
just before its close.