questions, and I make no terms. Show me how an important measure can be secured, which I think vital to the country, and I shall spare no effort to secure it.

Rules are for protection, for defence, and to facilitate business. If in any way they become an impediment, they cease to perform their natural office, and I can easily abandon them, especially when my country may suffer. Therefore, Sir, I am only slightly impressed by the argument that our information with regard to the President is informal. It is enough that a measure we all have at heart as essential to national life may fail to receive his constitutional approval, unless modified in advance by supplementary statute. Anxious for this measure, I think how it may be secured, rather than how the opinions of the President have become known to us.

Of course, Sir, I cannot share the doubts attributed to the President. To me they seem groundless and fallacious. Waiving all question of their accuracy as an interpretation of the Constitution, even in criminal proceedings, I cannot forbear saying that they proceed on the mistaken idea of a procedure by indictment and not by war, subjecting the country to all the constraint of a criminal trial when the exigency requires the ample latitude of war. If soldiers are sent forth to battle, if fields are occupied as camps, and houses are occupied as hospitals, without permission of the owners, it is under the War Powers of Congress, or, in other words, the belligerent rights of this Government. And it is by virtue of these same belligerent rights that the property of an enemy is taken. Now, if he be an enemy, is there in the Constitution any check upon these rights? Whether you choose to take property for life or beyond life, the

Constitution is indifferent; for all constitutional limitations are entirely inapplicable to belligerent rights. There are express words ordaining that you must not "abridge the freedom of speech or of the press," or "infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms"; nor can you take "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." And yet, wherever your armies move, and elsewhere too, you do all these very things in the exercise of acknowledged belligerent rights. As plainly, the right of confiscation, whether for life or beyond life, is also yours.

Unhappily, Sir, our country is engaged in war, terrible, relentless, unquestionable war, and if we would not discard success, it must be prosecuted as war, in the full exercise of belligerent rights. If we were dealing with sporadic cases of treason, with simple sedition, or with a mere outbreak, our process would be limited by the Constitution; but with an enemy before us, lashed into fury and led on by "Até hot from Hell," where is the limit to the powers to be employed? I remember that Burke, in his great effort on Conciliation with America, says: "It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest; I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against an whole people." 1 But when, on account of a provision in the Constitution obviously intended only for the protection of the citizen, you refuse to take the property of an enemy in open war, then do you substitute the safeguards of criminal justice for war, thus voluntarily weakening your armies and diminishing your power. I am tempted to say, that, in devotion to the form of the Constitution, you sacrifice.

1 Works (London, 1801), Vol. III. p. 69.

its substance. I might say, that, in misapplying the text of the Constitution, you sacrifice the Constitution itself.

Pardon me for seeming, even briefly, to argue this question. I do it only because I would not have my vote misunderstood. I shall support the proposition, not because I concur with it, but because its adoption will help secure the approval of the bill that has so much occupied the attention of Congress and the hopes of the country.

Mr. President, I have never, from the beginning, disguised my conviction that the most important part of the bill concerns Emancipation. To save this great part, to secure this transcendent ally, to establish this assurance of victory, and to obtain for my country this lofty crown of prosperity and glory, I willingly abandon all the rest. The navigator is called sometimes to save his ship by casting part of the cargo into the sea.

But whatever the difference between the President and Congress, there are two points on which there is no difference. Blacks are to be employed, and slaves are to be freed. In this legislative proclamation the President and Congress will unite. Together they will deliver it to the country and to the world.

It is an occasion of just congratulation, that the long debates of the session have at last ripened into a measure which I do not hesitate to declare more important. than any victory achieved by our arms. Thank God, the new levies will be under an inspiration which cannot fail. It is the idea of Freedom, which, in spite of all discomfiture, past or present, must give new force to the embattled armies of the Republic, making their conflicts her own.

Sir, from this day forward the war will be waged with new hopes and new promises. A new power is enlisted, incalculable in influence, strengthening our armies, weakening the enemy, awakening the sympathies of mankind, and securing the favor of a benevolent God. The infamous Order No. 3, which has been such a scandal to the Republic, is rescinded. The slave everywhere can hope. Beginning to do justice, we shall at last deserve

success.

The original bill and the explanatory joint resolution were returned to the Senate together, with the approval of the President, July 17th, being the last day of the session, and just before its close.

UNION OF GOOD CITIZENS FOR A FINAL SETTLEMENT.

LETTER TO THE REPUBLICAN STATE COMMITTEE, SEPTEMBER 9, 1862.

Ar the Republican State Convention at Worcester, September 10th,1 Mr. Claflin, Chairman of the State Committee, read the following letter from Mr. Sumner, which, according to the report, was received with great applause.

MY

BOSTON, September 9, 1862.

Y DEAR SIR,- As a servant of the State, I have always recognized the right of my constituents in State Convention to expect from me such counsels on public affairs as I could offer, and I have accepted with gratitude the invitations with which they have honored me. If now, in these dark days, when danger thickens, I do not take advantage of the opportunity you present, believe me, it is not from indifference, nor is it because. our duties at this moment are uncertain.

Eagerly do gallant soldiers (God bless them!) rush to the field of death for the sake of their country. Eagerly do good citizens at home (God bless them!) contribute of their abundance, or it may be of their poverty, to smooth the lot of our gallant soldiers. But there is

1 At this Convention Mr. Sumner was nominated for reëlection as Senator. See, post, pp. 240, 241.