"THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT" IN THE SENATE.
During the great debate, which now opened in the Senate, upon the
Judiciary Committee's substitute resolution for the Amendment of the
Constitution, so as forever to prohibit Slavery within the United
States, and to empower Congress to pass such laws as would make that
prohibition effective--participated in by Messrs. Trumbull, Wilson,
Saulsbury, Davis, Harlan, Powell, Sherman, Clark, Hale, Hendricks,
Henderson, Sumner, McDougall and others--the whole history of Slavery
was enquired into and laid bare.
Trumbull insisted that Slavery was at the bottom of all the internal
troubles with which the Nation had from its birth been afflicted, down
to this wicked Rebellion, with all the resulting "distress, desolation,
and death;" and that by 1860, it had grown to such power and arrogance
that "its advocates demanded the control of the Nation in
its interests, failing in which, they attempted its overthrow." He
reviewed, at some length, what had been done by our Government with
regard to Slavery, since the breaking out of hostilities against us in
that mad attempt against the National life; how, "in the earlier stages
of the War, there was an indisposition on the part of the Executive
Authority to interfere with Slavery at all;" how, for a long time,
Slaves, escaping to our lines, were driven back to their Rebel masters;
how the Act of Congress of July, 1861, which gave Freedom to all Slaves
allowed by their Rebel masters to assist in the erection of Rebel works
and fortifications, had "not been executed," and, said Mr. Trumbull, "so
far as I am advised, not a single Slave has been set at liberty under
it;" how, "it was more than a year after its enactment before any
considerable number of Persons of African descent were organized and
armed" under the subsequent law of December, 1861, which not only gave
Freedom to all Slaves entering our Military lines, or who, belonging to
Rebel masters, were deserted by them, or were found in regions once
occupied by Rebel forces and later by those of the Union, but also
empowered the President to organize and arm them to aid in the
suppression of the Rebellion; how, it was not until this law had been
enacted that Union officers ceased to expel Slaves coming within our
lines--and then only when dismissal from the public service was made the
penalty for such expulsion; how, by his Proclamations of Emancipation,
of September, 1862, and January, 1863, the President undertook to
supplement Congressional action--which had, theretofore, been confined
to freeing the Slaves of Rebels, and of such of these only as had come
within the lines of our Military power-by also declaring, Free, the
Slaves "who were in regions of country from which the authority of the
United States was expelled;" and how, the "force and effect" of these
Proclamations were variously understood by the enemies and friends of
those measures--it being insisted on the one side that Emancipation as a
War-stroke was within the Constitutional War-power of the President as
Commander-in-Chief, and that, by virtue of those Proclamations, "all
Slaves within the localities designated become ipso facto Free," and on
the other, that the Proclamations were "issued without competent
authority," and had not effected and could not effect, "the Emancipation
of a single Slave," nor indeed could at any time, without additional
legislation, go farther than to liberate Slaves coming within the Union
Army lines.
After demonstrating that "any and all these laws and Proclamations,
giving to each the largest effect claimed by its friends, are
ineffectual to the destruction of Slavery," and protesting that some
more effectual method of getting rid of that Institution must be
adopted, he declared, as his judgment, that "the only effectual way of
ridding the Country of Slavery, so that it cannot be resuscitated, is by
an Amendment of the Constitution forever prohibiting it within the
jurisdiction of the United States."
He then canvassed the chances of adoption of such an Amendment by an
affirmative vote of two thirds in each House of Congress, and of its
subsequent ratification by three-fourths of the States of the Union, and
declared that "it is reasonable to suppose that if this proposed
Amendment passes Congress, it will, within a year, receive the
ratification of the requisite number of States to make it a part of the
Constitution." His prediction proved correct--but only after a
protracted struggle.
Henry Wilson also made a strong speech, but on different grounds. He
held that the Emancipation Proclamations formed, together, a "complete,
absolute, and final decree of Emancipation in Rebel States," and, being
"born of Military necessity" and "proclaimed by the Commander-in-Chief
of the Army and Navy, is the settled and irrepealable Law of the
Republic, to be observed, obeyed, and enforced, by Army and Navy, and is
the irreversible voice of the Nation."
He also reviewed what had been done since the outbreak of the Rebellion,
by Congress and the President, by Laws and Proclamations; and, while
standing by the Emancipation Proclamations, declared that "the crowning
Act, in this series of Acts, for the restriction and extinction of
Slavery in America, is this proposed Amendment to the Constitution
prohibiting the existence of Slavery in the Republic of the United
States."
The Emancipation Proclamation, according to his view, only needed
enforcement, to give "Peace and Order, Freedom and Unity, to a now
distracted Country;" but the "crowning act" of incorporating this
Amendment into the Constitution would do even more than all this, in
that it would "obliterate the last lingering vestiges of the Slave
System; its chattelizing, degrading, and bloody codes; its malignant,
barbarizing spirit; all it was, and is; everything connected with it or
pertaining to it, from the face of the Nation it has scarred with moral
desolation, from the bosom of the Country it has reddened with the blood
and strewn with the graves of patriotism."
While the debate proceeded, President Lincoln watched it with careful
interest. Other matters, however, had, since the Battle of Chattanooga,
largely engrossed his attention.
The right man had at last been found--it was believed--to control as
well as to lead our Armies. That man was Ulysses S. Grant. The grade
of Lieutenant General of the Army of the United States--in desuetude
since the days of Washington, except by brevet, in the case of Winfield
Scott,--having been especially revived by Congress for and filled by the
appointment and confirmation of Grant, March 2, 1864, that great soldier
immediately came on to Washington, received his commission at the hands
of President Lincoln, in the cabinet chamber of the White House, on the
9th, paid a flying visit to the Army of the Potomac, on the 10th, and at
once returned to Nashville to plan future movements.
On the 12th, a General Order of the War Department (No. 98) was issued,
relieving Major-General Halleck, "at his own request," from duty as
"General-in-Chief" of the Army, and assigning Lieutenant-General U. S.
Grant to "the command of the Armies of the United States," "the
Headquarters of the Army" to be in Washington, and also with
Lieutenant-General Grant in the Field, Halleck being assigned to "duty,
in Washington, as Chief-of-staff of the Army, under the direction of the
Secretary of War and the Lieutenant-General commanding."
By the same order, Sherman was assigned to the command of the "Military
Division of the Mississippi," composed of the Departments of the Ohio,
the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and the Arkansas; and McPherson to that
of the Department and Army of the Tennessee.
On the 23rd of March, Grant was back again at Washington, and at once
proceeded to Culpepper Court-house, Virginia, where his Headquarters in
the field were, for a time, to be.
Here he completed his plans, and reorganized his Forces, for the coming
conflicts, in the South-west and South-east, which were to result in a
full triumph to the Union Arms, and Peace to a preserved Union.
It is evident, from the utterances of Mr. Lincoln when Vicksburg fell,
that he had then become pretty well satisfied that Grant was "the coming
man," to whom it would be safe to confide the management and chief
leadership of our Armies. Chattanooga merely confirmed that belief--as
indeed it did that of Union men generally. But the concurrent judgment
of Congress and the President had now, as we have seen, placed Grant in
that chief command; and the consequent relief to Mr. Lincoln, in thus
having the heavy responsibility of Army-control, long unwillingly
exercised by him, taken from his own shoulders and placed upon those of
the one great soldier in whom he had learned to have implicit faith,--a
faith earned by steady and unvaryingly successful achievements in the
Field--must have been most grateful.
Other responsibilities would still press heavily enough upon the
President's time and attention. Questions touching the Military and
Civil government of regions of the Enemy's country, conquered by the
Union arms; of the rehabilitation or reconstruction of the Rebel States;
of a thousand and one other matters, of greater or lesser perplexity,
growing out of these and other questions; besides the ever pressing and
gigantic problems involved in the raising of enormous levies of troops,
and prodigious sums of money, needed in securing, moving, and supplying
them, and defraying the extraordinary expenses growing out of the
necessary blockade of thousands of miles of Southern Coast, and other
Naval movements; not to speak of those expenditures belonging to the
more ordinary business transactions of the Government.
But chief of all things claiming his especial solicitude, as we have
seen, was this question of Emancipation by Constitutional enactment, the
debate upon which was now proceeding in the Senate. That solicitude was
necessarily increased by the bitter opposition to it of Northern
Copperheads, and by the attitude of the Border-State men, upon whose
final action, the triumph or defeat of this great measure must
ultimately depend.
Many of the latter, were, as has already been shown in these pages,
loyal men; but the loyalty of some of these to their Country, was still
so questionably and so thoroughly tainted with their worshipful devotion
to Slavery--although they must have been blind indeed not to have
discovered, long ere this, that it was a "slowly-dying cause"--that they
were ever on the alert to delay, hamper, and defeat, any action, whether
Executive or Legislative, and however necessary for the preservation of
the Union and the overthrow of its mortal enemies, which, never so
lightly, impinged upon their "sacred Institution."
This fact was well set forth, in this very debate, by a Senator from New
England--[Wilson of Massachusetts]--when, after adjuring the
anti-Slavery men of the age, not to forget the long list of Slavery's
crimes, he eloquently proceeded:
"Let them remember, too, that hundreds of thousands of our countrymen in
Loyal States--since Slavery raised the banners of Insurrection, and sent
death, wounds, sickness, and sorrow, into the homes of the People--have
resisted, and still continue to resist, any measure for the defense of
the Nation, if that measure tended to impair the vital and animating
powers of Slavery. They resisted the Act making Free the Slaves used by
Rebels for Military purposes; the Confiscation of Rebel property and the
Freedom of the Slaves of Rebel masters; the Abolition of Slavery in the
Capital of the Nation, and the consecration of the Territories to Free
Labor and Free laboring men; the Proclamation of Emancipation; the
enlistment of Colored men to fight the battles of the Country; the
Freedom of the Black soldier, who is fighting, bleeding, dying for the
Country; and the Freedom of his wife and children. And now, when War
has for nearly three years menaced the life of the Nation, bathed the
Land in blood, and filled two hundred thousand graves with our slain
sons, these men of the Loyal States still cling to the falling fortunes
of the relentless and unappeasable Enemy of their Country and its
democratic institutions; they mourn, and will not be comforted, over the
expiring System, in the Border Slave-States; and, in tones of
indignation or of anguish, they utter lamentations over the Proclamation
of Emancipation, and the policy that is bringing Rebel States back again
radiant with Freedom."
Among these "loyal" Democratic opponents of Emancipation, in any shape,
or any where, were not wanting men--whether from Loyal Northern or
Border States--who still openly avowed that Slavery was right; that
Rebellion, to preserve its continuance, was justifiable; and that there
was no Constitutional method of uprooting it.
Saulsbury of Delaware, was representative and spokesman of this class,
and he took occasion during this very debate--[In the Senate, March 31,
1864.]--to defend Slavery as a Divine Institution, which had the
sanction both of the Mosaic and Christian Dispensations!
[Said he: "Slavery had existed under some form or other from the
first period of recorded history. It dates back even beyond the
period of Abraham, the Father of the Faithful, in whose seed all
the Nations of the Earth were to be blessed. We find that,
immediately after the Flood, the Almighty, for purposes inscrutable
to us, condemned a whole race to Servitude: 'Vayomer Orur Knoan
Efet Afoatim Yeahio Le-echot:' 'And he said, Cursed be Canaan;
Slave of Slaves he shall be to his brethren.' It continued among
all people until the advent of the Christian era. It was
recognized in that New Dispensation, which was to supersede the
Old. It has the sanction of God's own Apostle; for when Paul sent
back Onesimus to Philemon, whom did he send? A Freeman? No, Sir.
He sent his (doulos,) a Slave, born as such, not even his
andrapodon, who was such by captivity in War. Among all people,
and in all ages, has this Institution, if such it is to be called,
existed, and had the countenance of wise and good men, and even of
the Christian Church itself, until these modern times, up at least
to the Nineteenth Century. It exists in this Country, and has
existed from the beginning."
Mr. Harlan's reply to the position of Mr. Saulsbury that Slavery is
right, is a Divine Institution, etc., was very able and
interesting. He piled up authority after authority, English as
well as American, to show that there is no support of Slavery--and
especially of the title to services of the adult offspring of a
Slave--at Common Law; and, after also proving, by the mouth of a
favorite son of Virginia, that it has no legal existence by virtue
of any Municipal or Statutory Law, he declared that the only
remaining Law that can be cited for its support is the Levitical
Code"--as follows:
"'Both thy Bondmen, and thy Bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall
be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy
Bondmen and Bondmaids.
"'Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among
you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you,
which they begat in your land; and they shall be your possession.
"'And ye shall take them as an Inheritance for your children after
you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your Bondmen
forever."'
"I remark," said he, "in this connection, that the Levitical Code,
or the Hebrew Law, contains a provision for the Naturalization of
Foreigners, whether captives of War, or voluntary emigrants. By
compliance with the requirements of this law they became citizens,
entitled to all the rights and privileges and immunities of native
Hebrews. The Hebrew Slave Code, applicable to Enslaved Hebrews, is
in these words:
"'And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold
unto thee, and serve thee six years, then in the seventh year thou
shalt let him go Free from thee.'
"Here I request the attention of those who claim compensation for
Emancipated Slaves to the text:
"'And when thou sendest him out Free from thee, thou shalt not let
him go away empty:
"'Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy floor'--
"Which means granaries--
"'and out of thy wine-press: of that wherewith the Lord thy God
hath blessed thee, thou shalt give unto him.'
"'It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou sendest him away Free
from thee, for he hath been worth a double-hired servant to thee,
in serving thee six years.'
"These Hebrew Statutes provide that the heathen might be purchased
and held as Slaves, and their posterity after them; that under
their Naturalization Laws all strangers and sojourners, Bond and
Free, have the privilege of acquiring the rights of citizenship;
that all Hebrews, natives or naturalized, might assert and maintain
their right to Freedom.
"At the end of six years a Hebrew Slave thus demanding his Liberty,
was not to be sent away empty; the owner, so far from claiming
compensation from his neighbors or from the Public Treasury for
setting him Free, was bound to divide with the Freedman, of his own
possessions: to give him of his flocks, of his herds, of his
granary, and of his winepress, of everything with which the Lord
Almighty had blessed the master during the years of his Servitude;
and then the owner was admonished that he was not to regard it as a
hardship to be required to Liberate the Slave, and to divide with
him of his substance.
"The Almighty places the Liberated Slave's claim to a division of
his former master's property on the eternal principles of Justice,
the duty to render an equivalent for an equivalent. The Slave
having served six years must be paid for his Service, must be paid
liberally because he had been worth even more than a hired servant
during the period of his enslavement.
"If, then," continued Mr. Harlan, "the justice of this claim cannot
be found either in Reason, Natural Justice, or the principles of
the Common Law, or in any positive Municipal or Statute regulation
of any State, or in the Hebrew Code written by the Finger of God
protruded from the flame of fire on the summit of Sinai, I ask
whence the origin of the title to the services of the adult
offspring of the Slave mother? or is it not manifest that there is
no just title? Is it not a mere usurpation without any known mode
of justification, under any existing Code of Laws, human or
Divine?"]
He also undertook to justify Secession on the singular ground that "we
are sprung from a Race of Secessionists," the proof of which he held to
be in the fact that, while the preamble to, as well as the body of the
Convention of Ratification of, the old Articles of Confederation between
the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and
Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia, declared that Confederation to be a "Perpetual Union," yet,
within nine years thereafter, all the other States Seceded from New
York, Virginia, North Carolina, and Rhode Island by ratifying the new
Constitution for "a more perfect Union."
He also endeavored to maintain the extraordinary proposition that "if
the Senate of the United States were to adopt this Joint-resolution, and
were to submit it to all the States of this Union, and if three-fourths
of the States should ratify the Amendment, it would not be binding on
any State whose interest was affected by it, if that State protested
against it!" And beyond all this, he re-echoed the old, old cry of the
Border-state men, that "the time is unpropitious for such a measure as
this."
Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, however, by his great speech, of April
5th, in the Senate, did much to clear the tangle in the minds of some
faltering Union statesmen on this important subject.
He reviewed the question of human Slavery from the time when the
Constitutional Convention was held; showed that at that period, as well
as at the time of the Declaration of our Independence "there was but one
sentiment upon the subject among enlightened Southern statesmen"--and
that was, that Slavery "is a great affliction to any Country where it
prevails;" and declared that "a prosperous and permanent Peace can never
be secured if the Institution is permitted to survive."
He then traversed the various methods by which statesmen were seeking to
prevent that survival of Slavery, addressing himself by turns to the
arguments of those who, with John Sherman, "seemed," said he, "to
consider it as within the power of Congress by virtue of its Legislative
authority;" to those of the "many well-judging men, with the President
at their head, who," to again use his own words, "seem to suppose that
it is within the reach of the Executive;" and lastly, to those "who
express the opinion that it is not within the scope of either Executive
or Legislative authority, or of Constitutional Amendment;" and after
demolishing the arguments of those who held the two former of these
positions, he proceeded to rebut the assumption that Slavery could not
be abolished at all because it was not originally abolished by the
Constitution.
Continuing, he said: "Remember, now, the question is, can that
Institution, which deals with Humanity as Property, which claims to
shackle the mind, the soul, and the body, which brings to the level of
the brute a portion of the race of Man, cease to be within the reach of
the political power of the People of the United States, not because it
was not at one time within their power, but because at that time they
did not exert the power?
"What says the Preamble to the Constitution? How pregnant with a
conclusive answer is the Preamble, to the proposition that Slavery
cannot be abolished! What does that Preamble state to have been the
chief objects that the great and wise and good men had at heart, in
recommending the Constitution, with that Preamble, to the adoption of
the American People? That Justice might be established; that
Tranquillity might be preserved; that the common Defense and general
Welfare might be maintained; and, last and chief of all, that Liberty
might be secured.
"Is there no Justice in putting an end to human Slavery? Is there no
danger to the Tranquillity of the Country in its existence? May it not
interfere with the common Defense and general Welfare? And, above all,
is it consistent with any notion, which the mind of man can conceive, of
human Liberty?"
He held that the very Amendatory clause of the Constitution under which
it was proposed to make this Amendment, was probably inserted there from
a conviction of that coming time "when Justice would call so loudly for
the extinction of the Institution that her call could not be disobeyed,"
and, when "the Peace and Tranquillity of the Land would demand, in
thunder tones," its destruction, "as inconsistent with such Peace and
Tranquillity."
To the atrocious pretence that "there was a right to make a Slave of any
human being"--which he said would have shocked every one of the framers
of the Constitution had they heard it; and, what he termed, the nauseous
declaration that "Slavery of the Black race is of Divine origin," and
was intended to be perpetual; he said:
"The Saviour of Mankind did not put an end to it by physical power, or
by the declaration of any existing illegality, in word. His mission
upon Earth was not to propagate His doctrines by force. He came to
save, not to conquer. His purpose was not to march armed legions
throughout the habitable Globe, securing the allegiance of those for
whose safety He was striving. He warred by other influences. He aimed
at the heart, principally. He inculcated his doctrines, more ennobling
than any that the World, enlightened as it was before His advent upon
Earth, had been able to discover. He taught to Man the obligation of
brotherhood. He announced that the true duty of Man was to do to others
as he would have others do to him--to all men, the World over; and
unless some convert to the modern doctrine that Slavery itself finds not
only a guarantee for its existence, but for its legal existence, in the
Scripture, excepts from the operation of the influences which His
morality brought to bear on the mind of the Christian world, the Black
man, and shows that it was not intended to apply to Black men, then it
is not true, it cannot be true, that He designed His doctrine not to be
equally applicable to the Black and to the White, to the Race of Man as
he then existed, or as he might exist in all after-time."
To the assumption that the African Slaves were too utterly deficient and
degraded, mentally and morally, to appreciate the blessings of Freedom,
he opposed the eloquent fact that "wherever the flag of the United
States, the symbol of human Liberty, now goes; under it, from their
hereditary bondage, are to be found men and women and children
assembling and craving its protection 'fleeing from' the iron of
oppression that had pierced their souls, to the protection of that flag
where they are 'gladdened by the light of Liberty.'"
"It is idle to deny," said he--"we feel it in our own persons--how, with
reference to that sentiment, all men are brethren. Look to the
illustrations which the times now afford, how, in the illustration of
that sentiment, do we differ from the Black man? He is willing to incur
every personal danger which promises to result in throwing down his
shackles, and making him tread the Earth, which God has created for all,
as a man, and not as a Slave."
Said he: "It is an instinct of the Soul. Tyranny may oppress it for
ages and centuries; the pall of despotism may hang over it; but the
sentiment is ever there; it kindles into a flame in the very furnace of
affliction, and it avails itself of the first opportunity that offers,
promising the least chance of escape, and wades through blood and
slaughter to achieve it, and, whether it succeeds or fails,
demonstrates, vindicates in the very effort, the inextinguishable right
to Liberty."
He thought that mischiefs might result from this measure, owing to the
uneducated condition of the Slave, but they would be but temporary. At
all events to "suffer those Africans," said he, "whom we are calling
around our standard, and asking to aid us in restoring the Constitution
and the power of the Government to its rightful authority, to be reduced
to bondage again," would be "a disgrace to the Nation." The
"Institution" must be terminated.
"Terminate it," continued he, "and the wit of man will, as I think, be
unable to devise any other topic upon which we can be involved in a
fratricidal strife. God and nature, judging by the history of the past,
intend us to be one. Our unity is written in the mountains and the
rivers, in which we all have an interest. The very differences of
climate render each important to the other, and alike important.
"That mighty horde which, from time to time, have gone from the
Atlantic, imbued with all the principles of human Freedom which animated
their fathers in running the perils of the mighty Deep and seeking
Liberty here, are now there; and as they have said, they will continue
to say, until time shall be no more: 'We mean that the Government in
future shall be, as it has been in the past--Once an exemplar of human
Freedom, for the light and example of the World; illustrating in the
blessings and the happiness it confers, the truth of the principles
incorporated into the Declaration of Independence, that Life and Liberty
are Man's inalienable right."
Fortunately the Democratic opposition, in the Senate, to
this measure, was too small in numbers to beat the proposed Amendment,
but by offering amendments to it, its enemies succeeded in delaying its
adoption.
However, on the 5th of April, an amendment, offered by Garrett Davis,
was acted upon. It was to strike out all after the preamble of the
XIIIth Article of Amendment to the Constitution, proposed by the
Judiciary Committee, and insert the words:
"No Negro, or Person whose mother or grandmother is or was a Negro,
shall be a citizen of the United States and be eligible to any Civil or
Military office, or to any place of trust or profit under the United
States."
Mr. Davis's amendment was rejected by a vote of 5 yeas to 32 nays; when
he immediately moved to amend, by adding precisely the same words at the
end of Section 1 of the proposed Article. It was again rejected. He
then moved to amend by adding to the said Section these words:
"But no Slave shall be entitled to his or her Freedom under this
Amendment if resident at the time it takes effect in any State, the laws
of which forbid Free Negroes to reside therein, until removed from such
State by the Government of the United States."
This also was rejected. Whereupon Mr. Powell moved to add, at the end
of the first Section, the words:
"No Slave shall be Emancipated by this Article unless the owner thereof
shall be first paid the value of the Slave or Slaves so Emancipated."
This likewise was rejected, on a yea and nay vote, by 2 yeas (Davis and
Powell) to 34 nays; when Mr. Davis moved another amendment, viz.: to add
at the end of Section 2 of the proposed Article, the following:
"And when this Amendment of the Constitution shall have taken effect by
Freeing the Slaves, Congress shall provide for the distribution and
settlement of all the population of African descent in the United States
among the several States and Territories thereof, in proportion to the
White population of each State and Territory to the aggregate population
of those of African descent."
This met a like fate; whereupon the Senate adjourned, but, on the
following day, the matter came up again for consideration:
Hale, of New Hampshire, jubilantly declared that "this is a day that I
and many others have long wished for, long hoped for, long striven for.
* * * A day when the Nation is to commence its real life; or, if it is
not the day, it is the dawning of the day; the day is near at hand * * *
when the American People are to wake up to the meaning of the sublime
truths which their fathers uttered years ago, and which have slumbered,
dead-letters, upon the pages of our Constitution, of our Declaration of
Independence, and of our history."
McDougall, of California, on the other hand,--utterly regardless of the
grandly patriotic resolutions of the Legislature of his State, which had
just been presented to the Senate by his colleague--lugubriously
declared:
"In my judgment, it may well be said of us:
'Let the Heavens be hung in black
And let the Earth put mourning on,'
for in the history of no Free People, since the time the Persians came
down upon Athens, have I known as melancholy a period as this day and
year of Our Lord in our history; and if we can, by the blessing of God
and by His favor, rise above it, it will be by His special providence,
and by no act of ours."
The obstructive tactics were now resumed, Mr. Powell leading off by a
motion to amend, by adding to the Judiciary Committee's proposed
Thirteenth Article of the Constitution, the following:
"ART. 14.--The President and Vice-President shall hold their Offices for
the term of four--[Which he subsequently modified to: 'six years']
--years. The person who has filled the Office of President shall not be
reeligible."
This amendment was rejected by 12 yeas to 32 nays; whereupon Mr. Powell
moved to add to the Committee's Proposition another new Article, as
follows:
"ART. 14.--The principal Officer in each of the Executive Departments,
and all persons connected with the Diplomatic Service, may be removed
from office at the pleasure of the President. All other officers of the
Executive Departments may be removed at any time by the President or
other appointing power when their services are unnecessary, or for
dishonesty, incapacity, inefficiency, misconduct, or neglect of duty,
and when so removed, the removal shall be reported to the Senate,
together with the reasons therefor."
This amendment also being rejected, Mr. Powell offered another, which
was to add a separate Article as follows:
"ART. 14.--Every law, or Resolution having the force of law, shall
relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in its title."
This also being rejected--the negative vote being, as in other cases,
without reference to the merits of the proposition--and Mr. Powell
having now apparently exhausted his obstructive amendatory talents, Mr.
Davis came to the aid of his Kentucky colleague by moving an amendment,
to come in as an additional Article, being a new plan of Presidential
election designed to do away with the quadrennial Presidential campaign
before the People by giving to each State the right to nominate one
candidate, and leaving it to a Convention of both Houses of Congress
--and, in case of disagreement, to the Supreme Court of the United States
--to elect a President and a Vice-President.
The rejection of this proposition apparently exhausted the stock of
possible amendments possessed by the Democratic opposition, and the
Joint Resolution, precisely as it came from the Judiciary Committee,
having been agreed to by that body, "as in Committee of the Whole," was
now, April 6th, reported to the Senate for its concurrence.
On the following day, Mr. Hendricks uttered a lengthy jeremiad on the
War, and its lamentable results; intimated that along the Mississippi,
the Negroes, freed by the advance of our invading Armies and Navies,
instead of being happy and industrious, were without protection or
provision and almost without clothing, while at least 200,000 of them
had prematurely perished, and that such was the fate reserved for the
4,000,000 Negroes if liberated; and declared he would not vote for the
Resolution, "because," said he, "the times are not auspicious."
Very different indeed was the attitude of Mr. Henderson, of Missouri,
Border-State man though he was. In the course of a speech, of much
power, which he opened with an allusion to the 115,000 Slaves owned in
his State in 1860--as showing how deeply interested Missouri "must be in
the pending proposition"--the Senator announced that: "Our great
interest, as lovers of the Union, is in the preservation and
perpetuation of the Union." He declared himself a Slaveholder, yet none
the less desired the adoption of this Thirteenth Article of Amendment,
for, said he: "We cannot save the Institution if we would. We ought not
if we could. * * * If it were a blessing, I, for one, would be
defending it to the last. It is a curse, and not a blessing. Therefore
let it go. * * * Let the iniquity be cast away!"
It was about this time that a remarkable letter written by Mr. Lincoln
to a Kentuckian, on the subject of Emancipation, appeared in print. It
is interesting as being not alone the President's own statement of his
views, from the beginning, as to Slavery, and how he came to be "driven"
to issue the Proclamation of Emancipation, and as showing how the Union
Cause had gained by its issue, but also in disclosing, indirectly, how
incessantly the subject was revolved in his own mind, and urged by him
upon the minds of others. The publication of the letter, moreover, was
not without its effect on the ultimate action of the Congress and the
States in adopting the Thirteenth Amendment. It ran thus:
"EXECUTIVE MANSION.
"WASHINGTON, April 4, 1864.
"A. G. HODGES, Esq., Frankfort, Ky.
"MY DEAR SIR: You ask me to put in writing the substance of--what I
verbally said the other day, in your presence, to Governor Bramlette and
Senator Dixon. It was about as follows:
"I am naturally anti-Slavery. If Slavery is not wrong, nothing is
wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel, and yet I
have never understood that the 'Presidency conferred upon me an
unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling.
"It was in the oath I took, that I would to the best of my ability
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I
could not take the Office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view
that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the
power.
"I understood, too, that in ordinary and Civil Administration this oath
even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on
the moral question of Slavery. I had publicly declared this many times,
and in many ways.
"And I aver that, to this day, I have done no Official act in mere
deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on Slavery.
"I did understand, however, that my oath to preserve the Constitution to
the best of my ability, imposed upon me the duty of preserving by every
indispensable means, that Government--that Nation, of which that
Constitution was the Organic Law.
"Was it possible to lose the Nation and yet preserve the Constitution?
"By General Law, life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must
be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a
limb. I felt that measures, otherwise Unconstitutional, might become
lawful, by becoming Indispensable to the Constitution through the
preservation of the Nation.
"Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not
feel that, to the best of my ability, I have even tried to preserve the
Constitution, if, to save Slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit
the wreck of Government, Country, and Constitution, altogether.
"When, early in the War, General Fremont attempted Military
Emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not then think it an
Indispensable Necessity.
"When, a little later, General Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested
the Arming of the Blacks, I objected, because I did not yet think it an
Indispensable Necessity.
"When, still later, General Hunter attempted Military Emancipation, I
again forbade it, because I did not yet think the Indispensable
Necessity had come.
"When in March, and May, and July, 1862, I made earnest and successive
appeals to the Border-States to favor compensated Emancipation, I
believed the Indispensable Necessity for Military Emancipation and
arming the Blacks would come, unless averted by that measure.
"They declined the proposition, and I was, in my best judgment, driven
to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and with it, the
Constitution, or of laying strong hand upon the Colored element. I
chose the latter. In choosing it, I hoped for greater gain than loss,
but of this I was not entirely confident.
"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 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 face the truth.
"I add a word which was not in the verbal conversation. In telling this
tale, I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have
controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.
Now at the end of three years' struggle, the Nation's condition is not
what either Party, or any man, devised or expected. God alone can claim
it.
"Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a
great wrong, and wills also that we of the North, as well as you of the
South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial
history will find therein new causes to attest and revere the Justice
and goodness of God.
"Yours truly,
"A. LINCOLN."
The 8th of April (1864) turned out to be the decisive field-day in the
Senate. Sumner endeavored to close the debate on that day in a speech
remarkable no less for its power and eloquence of statement, its
strength of Constitutional exposition, and its abounding evidences of
extensive historical research and varied learning, than for its
patriotic fervor and devotion to human Freedom.
Toward the end of that great speech, however, he somewhat weakened its
force by suggesting a change in the phraseology of the proposed
Thirteenth Amendment, so that, instead of almost precisely following the
language of the Jeffersonian Ordinance of 1787, as recommended by the
Judiciary Committee of the Senate, it should read thus:
"All Persons are Equal before the Law, so that no person can hold
another as a Slave; and the Congress may make all laws necessary and
proper to carry this Article into effect everywhere within the United
States and the jurisdiction thereof."
Mr. Sumner's idea in antagonizing the Judiciary Committee's proposition
with this, was to introduce into our Organic Act, distinctive words
asserting the "Equality before the Law" of all persons, as expressed in
the Constitutional Charters of Belgium, Italy and Greece, as well as in
the various Constitutions of France--beginning with that of September,
1791, which declared (Art. 1) that "Men are born and continue Free and
Equal in Rights;" continuing in that of June, 1793, which declares that
"All Men are Equal by Nature and before the Law:" in that of June, 1814,
which declares that "Frenchmen are Equal before the Law, whatever may be
otherwise their title and ranks;" and in the Constitutional Charter of
August, 1830 in similar terms to the last.
"But," said he, "while desirous of seeing the great rule of Freedom
which we are about to ordain, embodied in a text which shall be like the
precious casket to the more precious treasure, yet * * * I am consoled
by the thought that the most homely text containing such a rule will be
more beautiful far than any words of poetry or eloquence, and that it
will endure to be read with gratitude when the rising dome of this
Capitol, with the Statue of Liberty which surmounts it, has crumbled to
dust."
Mr. Sumner's great speech, however, by no means ended the debate. It
brought Mr. Powell to his feet with a long and elaborate contention
against the general proposition, in the course of which he took occasion
to sneer at Sumner's "most remarkable effort," as one of his "long
illogical rhapsodies on Slavery, like:
'--a Tale
Told by an Idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.'"
He professed that he wanted "the Union to be restored with the
Constitution as it is;" that he verily believed the passage of this
Amendment would be "the most effective Disunion measure that could be
passed by Congress"--and, said he, "As a lover of the Union I oppose
it."
[This phrase slightly altered, in words, but not in meaning, to
"The Union as it was, and the Constitution as it is," afterward
became the Shibboleth under which the Democratic Party in the
Presidential Campaign of 1864, marched to defeat.]
He endeavored to impute the blame for the War, to the northern
Abolitionists, for, said he: "Had there been no Abolitionists, North,
there never would have been a Fire-eater, South,"--apparently ignoring
the palpable fact that had there been no Slavery in the South, there
could have been no "Abolitionists, North."
He heatedly denounced the "fanatical gentlemen" who desired the passage
of this measure; declared they intended by its passage "to destroy the
Institution of Slavery or to destroy the Union," and exclaimed: "Pass
this Amendment and you make an impassable chasm, as if you were to put a
lake of burning fire, between the adhering States and those who are out.
You will then have to make it a War of conquest and extermination before
you can ever bring them back under the flag of the Government. There is
no doubt about that proposition."
Mr. Sumner, at this point, withdrew his proposed amendment, at the
suggestion of Mr. Howard, who expressed a preference "to dismiss all
reference to French Constitutions and French Codes, and go back to the
good old Anglo-Saxon language employed by our Fathers, in the Ordinance
of 1787, (in) an expression adjudicated upon repeatedly, which is
perfectly well understood both by the public and by Judicial Tribunals
--a phrase, which is peculiarly near and dear to the people of the
Northwestern Territory, from whose soil Slavery was excluded by it."
[The following is the language of "the Ordinance of 1787" thus
referred to:
"ART. 6.--There shall be neither Slavery nor Involuntary Servitude
in the said Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes,
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: * * *."]
Mr. Davis thereupon made another opposition speech and, at its
conclusion, Mr. Saulsbury offered, as a substitute, an Article,
comprising no less than twenty sections--that, he said, "embodied in
them some things" which "did not meet his personal approbation," but he
had consented to offer them to the Senate as "a Compromise"--as "a Peace
offering."
The Saulsbury substitute being voted down, the debate closed with a
speech by Mr. McDougall--an eloquent protest from his standpoint, in
which, after endorsing the wild statement of Mr. Hendricks that 250,000
of the people of African descent had been prematurely destroyed on the
Mississippi, he continued.
"This policy will ingulf them. It is as simple a truth as has ever been
taught by any history. The Slaves of ancient time were not the Slaves
of a different Race. The Romans compelled the Gaul and the Celt,
brought them to their own Country, and some of them became great poets,
and some eloquent orators, and some accomplished wits, and they became
citizens of the Republic of Greece, and of the Republic of Rome, and of
the Empire.
"This is not the condition of these persons with whom we are now
associated, and about whose affairs we undertake to establish
administration. They can never commingle with us. It may not be within
the reading of some learned Senators, and yet it belongs to demonstrated
Science, that the African race and the European are different; and I
here now say it as a fact established by science, that the eighth
generation of the Mixed race formed by the union of the African and
European, cannot continue their species. Quadroons have few children;
with Octoroons reproduction is impossible.
"It establishes as a law of nature that the African has no proper
relation to the European, Caucasian, blood. I would have them kindly
treated. * * * Against all such policy and all such conduct I shall
protest as a man, in the name of humanity, and of law, and of truth, and
of religion."
The amendment made, as in Committee of the Whole, having been concurred
in, etc., the Joint Resolution, as originally reported by the Judiciary
Committee, was at last passed, (April 8th)--by a vote of 38 yeas to 6
nays--Messrs. Hendricks and McDougall having the unenviable distinction
of being the only two Senators, (mis-)representing Free States, who
voted against this definitive Charter of American Liberty.
[The full Senate vote, on passing the Thirteenth Amendment, was:
YEAS-Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Chandler, Clark, Collamer, Conness,
Cowan, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Hale,
Harding, Harlan, Harris, Henderson, Howard, Howe, Johnson, Lane of
Indiana, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Nesmith, Pomeroy, Ramsey,
Sherman, Sprague, Sumner, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Wade,
Wilkinson, Willey, and Wilson--38.
NAYs--Messrs. Davis, Hendricks, McDougall, Powell, Riddle, and
Saulsbury.]