CHAPTER XXIII.
"THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT" IN THE SENATE.
During the great debate, which now opened in the Senate, upon the Judiciary Committee"s subst.i.tute resolution for the Amendment of the Const.i.tution, so as forever to prohibit Slavery within the United States, and to empower Congress to pa.s.s such laws as would make that prohibition effective-partic.i.p.ated 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 a.s.sist 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 Emanc.i.p.ation, 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 Emanc.i.p.ation as a War-stroke was within the Const.i.tutional 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 Emanc.i.p.ation 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 Inst.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution forever prohibiting it within the jurisdiction of the United States."
He then canva.s.sed 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 pa.s.ses Congress, it will, within a year, receive the ratification of the requisite number of States to make it a part of the Const.i.tution." 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 Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamations formed, together, a "complete, absolute, and final decree of Emanc.i.p.ation 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 Emanc.i.p.ation 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 Const.i.tution prohibiting the existence of Slavery in the Republic of the United States."
The Emanc.i.p.ation 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 Const.i.tution would do even more than all this, in that it would "obliterate the last lingering vestiges of the Slave System; its chattelizing, degrading, and b.l.o.o.d.y 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 a.s.signing 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 a.s.signed 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 a.s.signed to the command of the "Military Division of the Mississippi," composed of the Departments of the Ohio, the c.u.mberland, 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 Emanc.i.p.ation by Const.i.tutional 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 att.i.tude 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 Inst.i.tution."
This fact was well set forth, in this very debate, by a Senator from New England-[Wilson of Ma.s.sachusetts]-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 Emanc.i.p.ation; 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 inst.i.tutions; 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 Emanc.i.p.ation, and the policy that is bringing Rebel States back again radiant with Freedom."
Among these "loyal" Democratic opponents of Emanc.i.p.ation, 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 Const.i.tutional method of uprooting it.
Saulsbury of Delaware, was representative and spokesman of this cla.s.s, and he took occasion during this very debate-[In the Senate, March 31, 1864.]-to defend Slavery as a Divine Inst.i.tution, 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 G.o.d"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 Inst.i.tution, 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 Inst.i.tution, 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 t.i.tle 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 Munic.i.p.al 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, ent.i.tled 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 Emanc.i.p.ated 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sert 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 Munic.i.p.al or Statute regulation of any State, or in the Hebrew Code written by the Finger of G.o.d protruded from the flame of fire on the summit of Sinai, I ask whence the origin of the t.i.tle to the services of the adult offspring of the Slave mother? or is it not manifest that there is no just t.i.tle? 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, Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tutional 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 Inst.i.tution 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 Const.i.tutional Amendment;" and after demolishing the arguments of those who held the two former of these positions, he proceeded to rebut the a.s.sumption that Slavery could not be abolished at all because it was not originally abolished by the Const.i.tution.
Continuing, he said: "Remember, now, the question is, can that Inst.i.tution, 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 Const.i.tution? 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 Const.i.tution, 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 Const.i.tution 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 Inst.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution 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, princ.i.p.ally. He inculcated his doctrines, more enn.o.bling 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 a.s.sumption 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 a.s.sembling 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 ill.u.s.trations which the times now afford, how, in the ill.u.s.tration 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 G.o.d 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 Const.i.tution and the power of the Government to its rightful authority, to be reduced to bondage again," would be "a disgrace to the Nation." The "Inst.i.tution" 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. G.o.d 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; ill.u.s.trating 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 Const.i.tution, 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 ent.i.tled 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 Emanc.i.p.ated by this Article unless the owner thereof shall be first paid the value of the Slave or Slaves so Emanc.i.p.ated."
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 Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution, 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 G.o.d 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 Const.i.tution, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 t.i.tle."
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 att.i.tude 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 Inst.i.tution 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 Emanc.i.p.ation, 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 Emanc.i.p.ation, 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 Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution to the best of my ability, imposed upon me the duty of preserving by every indispensable means, that Government-that Nation, of which that Const.i.tution was the Organic Law.
"Was it possible to lose the Nation and yet preserve the Const.i.tution?
"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 Unconst.i.tutional, might become lawful, by becoming Indispensable to the Const.i.tution through the preservation of the Nation.
"Right or wrong, I a.s.sumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I have even tried to preserve the Const.i.tution, if, to save Slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of Government, Country, and Const.i.tution, altogether.
"When, early in the War, General Fremont attempted Military Emanc.i.p.ation, 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 Emanc.i.p.ation, 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 Emanc.i.p.ation, I believed the Indispensable Necessity for Military Emanc.i.p.ation 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 Const.i.tution, 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.