4 MR. ADAMS ON SLAVERY IN WAR.. treaty of peace: can it, for an instant, be pretended that Congress, in such a contingency, would have no authority to interfere with the institution of Slavery, in any way, in the States? Why, it would be equivalent to saying that Congress has no constitutional authority to make peace.” Mr. Adams proceeded to show that Texas was then [prior to her annexation] the arena of a war concerning Slavery a war based on an effort to rëestablish Slavery where it had been abolished by Mexico; and that our country was powerfully incited to take part directly therein, on the side of Slavery; and might yet be impelled to do so. In view of this probability, he asked "Do you imagine that while, in the very nature of things, your own Southern and South-western States must be the battle-field upon which the last great conflict must be fought between Slavery and Emancipation -do you imagine that your Congress will have no constitutional authority to interfere with the institution of Slavery in any way, in the States of this confederacy? Sir, they must and will interfere with it-perhaps to sustain it by war; perhaps to abolish it by treaties of peace: and they will not only possess the constitutional power so to interfere, but they will be bound in duty to do it, by the express provisions of the Constitution itself. From the instant that your slaveholding States become the theater of war-civil, servile, or foreign-from that instant, the War powers of Congress extend to interference with the institution of Slavery in every way by which it can be interfered with, from a claim of indemnity for slaves taken or destroyed, to the cession of the State burdened with Slavery to a foriegn power." 235 aware that it is touching upon a sore place; and I would gladly get over it if I could. It has been my effort, so far as was in my power, to avoid any allusion whatever to that question which the gentleman from Virginia tells us that the most lamb-like disposition in the South never can approach without anger and indignation. Sir, that is my sorrow. I admit that the fact is so. We can not touch that subject without raising, throughout the whole South, a mass of violence and passion, with which one might as well reason as with a hurricane. That, I know, is the fact in the South; and that is the fact in this House. And it is the reason why members coming from a Free State are silenced as soon as they rise on this floor; why they are pronounced out of order; made to sit down; and, if they proceed, are censured and expelled. But in behalf of the South and of Southern institutions, a man may get up in this House and expatiate for weeks together. On this point, I do complain; and I must say I have been rather disappointed that I have not been put down already, as speaking out of order. What I say is involuntary, because the subject has been brought into the House from another quarter, as the gentleman himself admits. I would leave that institution to the exclusive consideration and management of the States more peculiarly interested in it, just so long as they can keep it within their own bounds. So far, I admit that Congress has no power to meddle with it. So long as they do not step out of their own bounds, and do not put the question to the people of the United States, whose peace, welfare, and happiness, are all at stake, so long I will agree to leave them to themselves. But when a member from a Free State brings forward certain resolutions, for which, instead of reasoning to disprove his positions, you vote a censure upon him—and that without hearing-it is quite another affair. At the time this was done, I said that, so far as I could understand the resolutions proposed by the gentleman from them for which I was ready to vote, and Ohio [Mr. Giddings], there were some of some which I must vote against; and I will now tell this House, my constituents, and the world of mankind, that the resolution against which I would have voted was that in which he declares that what are called the Slave States have the exclusive right of consultation on the subject of Slavery. For that resolution, I never would vote; because I believe that it is not just, and does not contain constitutional doctrine. I believe that, so long as the Slave States are able to sustain their institutions, without going abroad or calling upon other parts of April 15. In 1842,' when the prospective annexation of Texas, and a consequent war with Mexico, first loomed above the horizon, Mr. Adams returned to the subject; and, with reference to certain anti-Slavery resolves recently offered by Mr Giddings, of Ohio, and the action of the House thereupon, said: "What I am now to say, I say with great reluctance and with great pain. I am well 3 the Union to aid them or act on the subject, so long I will consent never to interfere. I have said this; and I repeat it: but, if they come to the Free States and say to them, 'You must help us to keep down our slaves; you must aid us in an insurrection and a civil war;' then I say that, with that call, comes a full and plenary power to this House and to the Senate over the whole subject. It is a War power. I say it is a War power; and when your country is actually in war, whether it be a war of invasion or a war of insurrection, Congress has power to carry on the war, and must carry it on according to the laws of war; and, by the laws of war, an invaded country has all its laws and municipal institutions swept by the board, and martial law takes the place of them. "This power in Congress has, perhaps, never been called into exercise under the present Constitution of the United States. But, when the laws of war are in force, what, I ask, is one of those laws? It is this: that when a country is invaded, and two hostile armies are set in martial array, the commanders of both armies have power to emancipate all the slaves in the invaded territory. Nor is this a mere theoretic statement. The history of South America shows that the doctrine has been carried into practical execution within the last thirty years. Slavery was abolished in Colombia, first by the Spanish General Murillo; and, secondly, by the American General Bolivar. It was abolished by virtue of a military command, given at the head of the army; and its abolition continues to be law to this day. It was abolished by the laws of war, and not by municipal enactInents. The power was exercised by military commanders, under instructions, of course, from their respective Governments. "And here I recur again to the example of Gen. Jackson. What are you now about in Congress? You are about passing a grant to refund to Gen. Jackson the amount of a certain fine imposed upon him by a judge under the laws of the State of Louisiana. You are going to refund him the money, with interest; and this you are going to do, because the imposition of the fine was unjust. And why was it unjust? Because Gen. Jackson was acting under the laws of war; and because, the moment you place a military commander in a district which is the theater of war, the laws of war apply to that district. * * * I might furnish a thousand proofs to show that the pretensions of gentlemen to the sanctity of their municipal institutions, under a state of actual invasion and of actual war, whether servile, civil, or foreign, is wholly unfounded; and that the laws of war do, in all such cases, take precedence. I lay this down as the | law of nations. I say that the military authority takes, for the time, the place of all municipal institutions, and of Slavery among the rest; and that, under that state of things, so far from its being true that the States where Slavery exists have the exclusive management of the subject, not only the President of the United States, but the commander of the army, has power to order the universal emancipation of the slaves. I have given here more in detail a principle which I have asserted on this floor before now, and of which I have no more doubt than that you, Sir, occupy that chair. I give it in its development, in order that any gentleman from any part of the Union may, if he think proper, deny the truth of the position, and may maintain his denial-not by indignation, not by passion and fury, but by sound and sober reasoning from the laws of nations and the laws of war. And, if my position can be answered, and refuted, I shall receive the refutation with pleasure; I shall be glad to listen to reason, aside, as I say, from indignation and passion. And if, by the force of reasoning, my understanding can be convinced, I here pledge myself to recant what I have asserted. "Let my position be answered; let me be told, let my constituents be told, let the people of my State be told-a State whose soil tolerates not the foot of a slave—that they are bound by the Constitution to a long and toilsome march under burning Summer suns and a deadly Southern clime, for the suppression of a servile war; that they are bound to leave their bodies to rot upon the sands of Carolina-to leave their wives widows and their children orphansthat those who can not march are bound to pour out their treasure, while their sons or brothers are pouring out their blood, to suppress a servile, combined with a civil or a foreign war; and yet that there exists no power, beyond the limits of the Slave State where such war is raging, to emancipate the slaves! I say, let this be proved-I ain open to conviction; but, till that conviction comes, I put it forth not as a dictate of feeling, but as a settled maxim of the laws of nations, that in such a case the military supersedes the civil power; and on this account I should have been obliged to vote, as I have said, against one of the resolutions of my excellent friend from Ohio [Mr. Giddings], or should at least have required that it be amended in conformity with the Constitution of the United States." Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, while a member of the House of Representatives, thirteen years prior to the appearance of Mr. Lincoln's Procla VIEWS OF MR. GIDDINGS AND GOV. SEWARD. 237 mation of Freedom, in reply to slave- | unfeigned reluctance, in a paper holding threats of a dissolution of the Union, said: "When that contest shall come; when the thunder shall roll and the lightnings flash; when the slaves of the South shall rise in the spirit of Freedom, actuated by the soulstirring emotion that they are men, destined to immortality, entitled to the rights which God bestowed upon them; when the masters shall turn pale and tremble; when their dwellings shall smoke, and dismay sit on each countenance; then, Sir, I do not say we will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh, but I do say, the lover of our race will then stand forth and exert the legitimate powers of this Government of freedom. We shall then have constitutional power to act for the good of our country, and to do justice to the slave. WE WILL THEN STRIKE OFF THE SHACKLES FROM HIS LIMBS. The Government will then have power to act between Slavery and Freedom; and it can best make peace by giving liberty to the slaves. And let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that time hastens; the President is exerting a power that will hurry it on; and I shall hail it as the approaching dawn of that Millennium which I know must come the earth." upon Our great Civil War was opened on the part of the Union, not only with an anxious desire, but with a general expectation, that it would be prosecuted to a successful issue without seriously disturbing the foundations and buttresses of Slav ery. 4 Mr. Lincoln's solicitude on this head, as evinced in his Inaugural Address, was deepened by the dubious, vacillating attitude of the Border Slave States, especially of his native Kentucky, which he was particularly anxious to attach firmly to the cause of the Union, while she seemed frantically wedded to Slavery. Gov. Seward, in his elaborate initial dispatch* to Mr. Dayton, our new Minister to the Court of France, approaching the topic of Slavery with 4 Vol L., pp. 422–6. * Dated April 22, 1861. designed to modify the ideas and influence the action of a foreign Government--indeed, of all foreign governments-argued that the Rebellion had no pretext that did not grow out of Slavery, and that it was causeless, objectless, irrational, even in view of Slavery, because of the "incontestable" fact set forth by him, as follows: "Moral and physical causes have determined inflexibly the character of each one of the Territories over which the dispute has arisen; and both parties, after the election [of Lincoln to the Presidency], harmoniously agreed on all the Federal laws required for their organization. The Territories will remain in all respects the same, whether the revolution shall succeed or fail. The condition of Slavery in the several States will remain just the same, whether it succeed or fail. There is not even a pretext for the complaint that the disaffected States are to be conquered by the United States, if the revolution fail; but the rights of the States, and the condition of every human being in them, will remain subject to the same laws and forms of administration, whether the revolution shall succeed or whether it shall fail. In the one case, the States would be federally connected with the new confederacy; in the other, they would, as now, be members of the United States; but their constitutions and laws, customs, habits, and institutions, will in either case remain the same. Our regular Army officers, educated at West Point in a faith that identified devotion to Slavery with loyalty to the Federal Constitution and Government, were of course imbued with a like spirit. Gen. McDowell, in his General Order' governing the first advance from the Potomac into Virginia, was as profoundly silent respecting Slavery and slaves as if the latter had no modern existence; while Gen. McClellan, on making a like advance into Western Virginia, issued' an address to the people thereof, wherein he said: • June 20. See Vol. I., pp. 534–5. 'May 26' "I have ordered troops to cross the river. | clined; and, after due debate, the conThey come as your friends and your broth-ference terminated fruitlessly. Very ers as enemies only to armed Rebels who are preying upon you. Your homes, your families, and your property, are safe under our protection. All your rights shall be religiously respected. "Notwithstanding all that has been said by the traitors to induce you to believe that our advent among you will be signalized by interference with your slaves, understand one thing clearly-not only will we abstain from all such interference, but we will, on the contrary, with an iron hand, crush any attempt at insurrection on their part." 8 Those volunteer officers, however, who had not been blessed with a West Point training, did not always view the matter in precisely this light. Directly after Gen. Butler's accession to command at Fortress Monroe, three negro slaves came within his lines from the Rebel lines adjacent; stating that they were held as property by Col. Mallory, of the Confederate forces in his front, who was about to send them to the North Carolina seaboard, to work on the Rebel fortifications there in progress, intended to bar that coast against our arms. Gen. Butler heard their story, was satisfied of its truth, and said: “These men are contraband of war: set them at work." 9 He was, very soon afterward, invited to a conference by Maj. Carey, commanding opposite; and accordingly met the Major (in whom he recognized an old political compatriot) a mile from the fort. Maj. Carey, as agent of his absent friend Mallory, demanded a return of those negroes; which Gen. Butler courteously but firmly de8 May 22, 1861. "In this matter, he [Gen. Butler] has struck this Southern Insurrection in a place which is as vulnerable as the heel of Achilles; and we dare say that, in receiving and seizing the slaves of Rebels as contraband of war, this Southern Confederacy will be substantially suppressed with the pacification of Virginia."—N. Y. Herald, May 31, 1861. naturally, the transit of negroes from Slavery to Fortress Monroe was thenceforth almost continuous. 10 Gen. Butler wrote " forthwith to Lt.-Gen. Scott, soliciting advice and direction. In this letter, he said : "Since I wrote my last, the question in regard to slave property is becoming one of very serious magnitude. The inhabitants of Virginia are using their negroes in the batteries, and are preparing to send their women and children south. The escapes from them are very numerous; and a squad has come in this morning," and my pickets are bringing in their women and children. Of course, these can not be dealt with upon the theory on which I designed to treat the services of able-bodied men and women who might come within my lines, and of which I gave you a detailed account in my last dispatch. "I am in the utmost doubt what to do with this species of property. Up to this time, I have had come within my lines men and women, with their children-entire families each family belonging to the same owner. I have, therefore, determined to employ-as I can do very profitably-the able-bodied persons in the party, issuing proper food for the support of all; charging against their services the expense of care and sustenance of the non-laborers; keeping a strict and accurate account, as well of the services as of the expenditures, having the worth of the services and the cost of the expenditure determined by a board of survey hereafter to be detailed. I know of no other manner in which to dispose of this subject, and the questions connected therewith. As a matter of property, to the insurgents it will be of very great moment the number that I now have amounting, as I am informed, to what in good times would be of the value of $60,000. "Twelve of these negroes, I am informed, have escaped from the erection of the batteries on Sewell's Point, which fired upon my expedition as it passed by out of range. As a means of offense, therefore, in the ene10 May 27, 1861. 11 "These fugitive slaves, at this rate, will soon prove more powerful in suffocating this Southern White insurrection than all the armies of Gen. Scott. This man Butler, in this thing, has proved himself the greatest lawyer we have between a pair of epaulets."-N. Y. Herald, June 28, 1861. BUTLER-CAMERON-FREMONT-LINCOLN. 239 my's hands, these negroes, when able-bod- | ion on the Slavery question had made ied, are of great importance. Without them, the batteries could not have been erected; at least, for many weeks. As a military question, it would seem to be a measure of nécessity, and deprives their masters of their services. "How can this be done? As a political question, and a question of humanity, can I receive the services of a father and a mother and not take the children? Of the humanitarian aspect, I have no doubt; of the political one, I have no right to judge. I therefore submit all this to your better judgment; and, as these questions have a political aspect, I have ventured-and I trust I am not wrong in so doing to duplicate the parts of my dispatch relating to this subject, and forward them to the Secretary Your obedient servant, of War. "BENJ. F. BUTLER. "Lt.-General SCOTT." He was answered by the head of the War Department as follows: "SIR:-Your action in respect to the negroes who came within your lines, from the service of the Rebels, is approved. The Department is sensible of the embarrassments which must surround officers conducting military operations in a State, by the laws of which Slavery is sanctioned. The Government can not recognize the rejection by any State of its Federal obligations, resting upon itself. Among these Federal obligations, however, no one can be more important than that of suppressing and dispersing any combination of the .former for the purpose of overthrowing its whole constitutional authority. While, therefore, you will permit no interference, by persons under your command, with the relations of persons held to service under the laws of any State, you will, on the other hand, so long as any State within which your military operations are conducted remains under the control of such armed combinations, refrain from surrendering to alleged masters any persons who come within your lines. You will employ such persons in the services to which they will be best adapted; keeping an account of the labor by them performed, of the value of it, and the expenses of their maintenance. The question of their final disposition will be reserved for future determination. "SIMON CAMERON, Secretary of War. "To Maj.-Gen. Butler.” Time passed. Bull Run had been fought and lost; the called session of Congress had been held; public opin very considerable strides; when Gen. Fremont, on assuming civil as well as military control of the State of Missouri, issued the memorable General Order," wherein he proclaimed that "The property, real and personal, of all persons in the State of Missouri who shall take up arms against the United States, or shall be directly proven to have taken active part with their enemies in the field, is declared to be confiscated to the public use; and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared free men.' This position was in advance of any that had yet been sanctioned at Washington; and, though it was very generally sustained or acquiesced in by the journals supporting the War, President Lincoln wrote Gen. Fremont that he must withdraw or mod ify it. This, Gen. F. declined to do, unless openly directed by his superior; hence the following order: "WASHINGTON, D. C., Sept. 11, 1861. "Maj.-Gen. JOHN C. FREMONT: "SIR: Yours of the 8th, in answer to mine of the 2d inst., is just received. Assured that you, upon the ground, could better judge of the necessities of your position than I could at this distance, on seeing your proclamation of August 30, I perceived no general objection to it; the particular clause, however, in relation to the confiscation of property and the liberation of slaves, appeared to me to be objectionable in its non-conformity to the Act of Congress, passed the 6th of last August, upon the same subjects; and hence I wrote you expressing my wish that that clause should be modified accordingly. Your answer, just received, expresses the preference on your part that I should make an open order for the modification; which I very cheerfully do. It is, therefore, ordered that the said clause of said proclamation be so modified, held, and construed, as to conform with, and not to transcend, the provisions on the same subject contained in the Act of Congress entitled 'An act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes,' 12 See it in full, Vol. I., p. 585. |