isting war must be prosecuted according to the laws of war, and

"That, therefore, we do hereby declare that the President, as the Commander-inchief of our army, and the officers in command under him, have the right to emancipate all persons held as slaves in any military district in a state of insurrection against the National Government; and that we respectfully advise that such order of Emancipation be issued, whenever the same will avail to weaken the power of the Rebels in arms, or to strengthen the military power of the loyal forces."

Mr. Trumbull proposed to enact that the slaves of all persons who shall take up arms against the United States, or in any manner aid or abet the existing Rebellion, shall thereupon be discharged from service or labor, and become thenceforth forever free; any existing law to the contrary notwithstanding.

These propositions, with various modifications, were vehemently discussed in either House, not continuously, but alternately with other measures, nearly to the end of that long and excited session. By friend and foe, they were debated as though their success or failure would decide the issue of Union or Disunion. By all the anti-Republicans, and by some of the more conservative Republicans, they were denounced as utterly, glaringly, in antagonism to the Federal Constitution, and as calculated to extinguish the last vestige of Unionism in the Slave States, but especially in those that had seceded. Said Senator Cowan, of Pennsylvania:

48

"Pass this bill, and the same messenger who carries it to the South will come back to us with the news of their complete consolidation as one man. We shall then have

done that which treason could not do: we

ourselves shall then have dissolved the Union; we shall have rent its sacred charter, and extinguished the last vestige of affection for it in the Slave States by our blind and passionate folly."

4o Elected as a Republican in 1861.

263

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In the same spirit, but more temperately, the bill was opposed by Messrs. Browning, of Ill., Willey, of Va., Henderson, of Mo., and Collamer, of Vt. (the first and last Republicans; the others very decided Unionists), as well as more unsparingly by Messrs. Garret Davis and Powell, of Ky., Saulsbury, of Del., Carlile, of Va., and others of the Opposition; while it was supported by Messrs. Trumbull, of Ill., Wilson and Sumner, of Mass., Howard, of Mich., Wade and Sherman, of Ohio, Morrill and Fessenden, of Maine, Clark and Hale, of N. H., and nearly all the more decided Republicans. So intense and formidable was the resistance that the Senate at length referred the bill to a Select Committee of seven-Mr. Clark, of N. H., chairman-who duly reported therefrom "A bill to suppress Insurrection, and punish Treason and Rebellion;" which merely authorized the President, at his discretion, to proclaim free all slaves of persons who shall be found in arms against the United States thirty days after the issue of such proclamation. On this bill being taken up," Mr. Davis, of Ky., tried to have it so amended that the said slaves, instead of being freed, should be sold and the proceeds put into the Treasury; but only seven Senators were found sufficiently Democratic to sustain that proposition. He next proposed that no slave should be emancipated under this act, until he should be on his way to be colonized at some point outside of the United States: which proposition received but six votes. Here the Senate bill was dropped, in deference to the action May 6, 1862. 50 May 16.

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52

51

of the House; in which, after a long, arduous, doubtful struggle, during which Mr. Eliot's resolve was referred to the Judiciary Committee and reported against " by Mr. Hickman, of Pa., its Chairman-" because the President has all power now"—it had been referred to a Select Committee of seven, whereof Mr. Sedgwick, of N. Y., was Chairman; whence Mr. Eliot, of Mass., reported " two bills, one providing for confiscating the property, the other for emancipating the slaves, of persistent Rebels; whereupon debate was renewed and continued for days-every Democrat and nearly every Border-State member resisting Emancipation as ruinous to the National cause. Said Mr. W. S. Holman, of Ind. (one of the most loyal and non-partisan of those elected as Democrats):

"I have supported, Sir, and will still support, every just measure of this Administration to restore the Union. No partisan interest shall control me when the Republic is in danger. I place the interest of my country far above every other interest. I will make any sacrifice to uphold the Government; but I will not be deterred from condemning, at this time, this or any other series of measures-the offspring of misguided zeal and passion, or of want of faith in our people-which tends to defeat the hope of a restoration of the Union. The citizen soldier, stricken down in battle or worn out by the weary march, falls a willing sacrifice for the Constitution of his country, and his dying eyes light up with hope as they catch the gleam of its starry symbol; while we deliberate on measures which would overthrow the one, and blot out the stars from the other."

tious reverence. I have 'worshiped it from cipline by which we were prepared for it, in my forefathers.' In the school of rigid disthe struggles out of which it was born, the seven years of bitter conflict, and the seven darker years in which that conflict seemed to be fruitless of good; in the wisdom with which it was constructed and first administered and set in motion; in the beneficent Government it has secured for more than two generations; in the blessed influences it has exerted upon the cause of Freedom to recognize the hand of a guiding and lovand Humanity the world over, I can not fail ing Providence. But not for the blessed memories of the past only do I cling to it. He must be blinded with excess of light,' or with the want of it, who does not see that to this nation, trembling on the verge of dissolution, it is the only possible bond of unity."

Mr. Samuel S. Cox, of Ohio, asked:

"Must these Northern fanatics be sated

with negroes, taxes, and blood, with division North and devastation South, and peril to lief shall come? They will not halt until constitutional liberty everywhere, before retheir darling schemes are consummated. History tells us that such zealots do not and can not go backward."

Said Mr. John Law, of Indiana :

"The man who dreams of closing the present unhappy contest by reconstructing this Union upon any other basis than that prescribed by our fathers, in the compact formed by them, is a madman-ay, worse, a traitor--and should be hung as high as Haman. Sir, pass these acts, confiscate under these bills the property of these men, emancipate their negroes, place arms in the hands of these human gorillas, to murder their masters and violate their wives and daughters, and you will have a war such as was never witnessed in the worst days of the French Revolution, and horrors never exceeded in St. Domingo, for the balance of this century at least."

82; Nays 68.

of the subject of slaves and Slavery into this chamber;" though no one but himself had mentioned either in connection with this measure. He drew a ludicrous picture of "a big negro fellow," fantastically arrayed, being presented as Minister from Hayti. Mr. Sumner rejoined; and Mr. Davis's substitute, providing for consular relations only with the republics aforesaid, was voted downYeas 8; Nays 31-and then the bill passed: Yeas 32; Nays 7. On reaching the House, it was referred to its Committee on Foreign Affairs; which Committee was discharged from its further consideration, on motion of Mr. Gooch, of Mass., who ably and temperately advocated its passage. Mr. Cox, of Ohio, replied, à la Davis; and, after further debate by Messrs. Fessenden, of Maine, Eliot, of Mass., McKnight and Kelley, of Pa., and Maynard, of Tenn., in favor, and Messrs. Biddle, of Pa., and Crittenden, of Ky., in opposition, it was passed-Yeas 86; Nays 37-and, being signed by the President, became the law of the land.

67

60

Previous to the triumph of Emancipation in the Federal District, there was no public provision for the education of the Blacks, whether bond or free; and very few, even of the latter, received any schooling whatever. The great obstacle to improvement having been swept away, Mr. Grimes, of Iowa, submitted" to the Senate a bill providing for the education of colored children in the city of Washington; prefacing it by a statement that, whereas the number of those children was in 1860 no less than 3,172, and while the Free Blacks 08 April 29. *9

66 June 2. 67 June 5.

of the District were taxed $36,000 per annum, whereof a tenth was appropriated to the support of schools, not one of their children was permitted to enter those schools or to receive any benefit whatever from the money thus wrested from them by law for the education of the children of the Whites, many of whom paid no tax whatever. His bill proposed simply that the city revenue raised for schools by the taxation of Blacks should be devoted to the education of their own children, and not those of the Whites.

This bill having been referred to and reported" from the District Committee, it was taken up," on motion of Mr. Grimes; and certain nonessential amendments of the Committee agreed to. Mr. Wilson, of Mass., then moved to add a new section, as follows:

"That all persons of color in the District of Columbia, or within the corporate limits of the cities of Washington and Georgetown, shall be subject and amenable to the same laws and ordinances to which free amenable; that they shall be tried for any White persons are or may be subject or offenses against the laws in the same manner as free White persons are or may be. tried for the same offenses; and that, upon being legally convicted of any crime or offense against any law or ordinance, such persons of color shall be liable to such penalty or punishment, and only such, as would be imposed or inflicted upon free White persons for the same crime or offense: and all acts, or parts of acts, inconsistent with the provisions of this act, are hereby repealed."