IN SENATE.
THURSDAY, February 9, 1865.The Senate met at 9 o'clock A. M.
The LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR. At the adjournment, last evening, the business before the Senate was the consideration of the joint resolution proposing to ratify the Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, recently submitted by Congress to the Legislatures of the several States for their concurrence. The question is on the passage of the joint resolution.
Mr. DOWNEY. Mr. President: I wish to state, briefly, the reasons for the vote which I shall give on the question now before the Senate. I do not desire, or intend to make a speech.
The subject may be considered, 1st, with reference to the power so to amend the Constitution of the United States; 2d, The justice of the measure, and 3d, The expediency of it.
The Constitution of the United States is the evidence of the compact entered into by the original States, and agreed to by all the States which have since been admitted into the page: 180[View Page 180]Union, It provides for its own amendment, and points out the manner in which it may be done. This provision for amendments was in the Constitution when it was entered into and agreed to by the States.
I know that there are persons of great ability, occupying prominent positions in the country, who deny the right to amend that instrument in this respect, claiming that there are implied limitations on the exercise of the power. They tell us, though it may be amended in other respects, that in this it cannot be amended. Can it be that there is anything in the nature of our institutions which is so incompatible with freedom that an amendment of the fundamental law, in accordance with its own express terms, the design of which is to extend and perpetuate freedom, cannot be made? I can see no sufficient reason for coming to such a conclusion. My best opinion is that the power exists to amend the Constitution in this respect.
The considerations, then, which remain to be weighed are those of justice and expediency.
With reference to the justice of the matter I have no doubt. I hold that there are certain rights which all men possess, and of which they can not rightfully be deprived, so long as they do not, by their own acts, forfeit the same. I recognize the right of each person to personal security, personal liberty, and to possess and enjoy property. These are spoken of as the absolute rights of individuals. In our Declaration of Independence they are denominated "inalienable rights," and are said to consist in "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," They belong to man in a state of nature, without reference to society. For the origin of them we do not look to any Charter or Constitution. They are the gifts of God. Government may and should protect these rights, but it does not confer them.
Yet, important as these rights are, they may be forfeited by the crimes of those who possess them. Amercements, imprisonments, and even deprivation of life may be necessary to promote the ends of good government; and for this purpose slavery and involuntary servitude may, according to the amendment proposed, still continue to exist. But unless these rights are thus forfeited by the individual, human government cannot deprive him of them, without, to that extent, being chargable with injustice and oppression.
I distinguish between these rights of which I have been speaking and those which are merely relative, and which have their origin in the regulations of human society. As these originate in society, so they must be controlled by it. A failure to distinguish between these rights and those of which I have already spoken, gives rise to much confusion of ideas, and a great amount of fanaticism. Some cannot, or will not, distinguish between the right to live, to be free and to enjoy the fruits of one's labor, and the right to vote, to sit on a jury or to hold an office. Yet it will be seen by any one that the former are the natural rights of the individual, while the latter are wholly dependent upon the regulations of society. It does not follow that if you recognize and secure to the colored man his natural rights, that you must confer upon him all those relative rights which you have conferred upon the white man, and make him his equal.
Slavery, as it has existed in some States of the Union, is destructive of two at least of the absolute rights of the individual; these are personal liberty and the right of property; for though from motives of interest the master may preserve the life of the slave, he deprives him of his liberty, and of the results of his labor, To be consistent, then, with what I have already said, and viewing slavery with reference to the justice of it, I must come to the conclusion that it ought to be extirpated.
With reference to the expediency of this amendment I will say this: If I could believe that its adoption would be in the way of an honorable adjustment of the pending national troubles, with a restoration of the union of all the States under the Constitution as it is, I might hesitate to vote for it, notwithstanding the power to make it might exist, and justice might require it. My desire to terminate the struggle, and to save the further effusion of blood and accumulation of indebtedness, might induce me to vote against it, and trust to reason and to Providence to remove this great evil from our land.
But when I remember that from the commencement of the rebellion, the avowed object of the rebels has been to sever the Union; when recent developments have shown that this determination still exists; and when they have refused from the commencement, and still refuse to submit to the rightful authority of the Government, I cannot conclude that any reasons growing out of expediency require me to withhold my support from this measure.
Any doubts which may arise as to the constitutionality or efficiency of the proclamation of the President of the United States, except as a military order, will be obviated by this amendment.
The President has declared that his proclamation will not be modified or withdrawn. If it be executed, there will be nothing of slavery left, which, to those who are interested in it, will be worth preserving. I think this, in every respect, the preferable mode of disposing of that which, in any event, seems doomed to destruction.
I have never, knowingly, given a vote or used any influence which I may have had for the extension of slavery. I have never believed that the Constitution of the United States carried slavery into any State or Territory, but have regarded it only as tolerating it, where it existed by force of local usage, or enactment.
New questions arise now almost every and we are all liable to err in our action them. When I was elected to this body the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863 had not been issued. The extirpation of slavery by an amendment of the Constitution had not been discussed. My opinion is that by voting for this amendment I shall reflect the will of a majority of my constituents. By voting for it I shall have the satisfaction of believing that my vote has been controlled by considerations of humanity and justice.
page: 181[View Page 181]"Do what it right," is a good rule of action. An all-wise Providence will take care of the consequences.
Mr. BROWN, of Wells, moved to postpone further consideration of this subject till Wednesday next at 2 o'clock, P. M.
On motion of Mr. BENNETT the motion to postpone was laid on the table by yeas 24, nays 20.
Mr. McCLURG insisted that when questions of this importance arise, and Senators request time to prepare their minds that they may present their constituents, in a respectable way,reasons for their vote, it is but an act of courtesy that it should be extended. He did not wish to shirk responsibility, but was willing to meet the question fairly and squarely in the face. It was thought by prominent members of the Senate that the question would not have been brought up till the press of business had been disposed of, but now that it had been sprung unexpectedly, he moved to postpone the further consideration of it, not until next week, until to-morrow morning at 9 o'clock.
Mr. BENNETT could see no good reason for postponing this question now. We had voted upon motions to postpone all yesterday afternoon and could not agree upon a time, and now we would gain time by going on with the discussion. Besides, in his opinion, there was a sufficient number of Senators prepared to speak on this subject to keep the question before the Senate till the time proposed by the gentleman from Clinton [Mr. McClurg.]
Mr. COBB contended that it would be an act of injustice to the minority here if they were pushed to a vote on this question before some time next week. Mature deliberation will give greater weight to the conclusions arrived at. As an act of courtesy to the minority the majority should agree to the postponement. In the Senate of the United States, when any member expresses a desire to be heard upon any particular question, that body invariably passes over the subject in order that the Senator may have time to prepare himself.
Mr. CASON would go to any reasonable length to extend a courtesy to the other side of the House, but was convinced, aid he thought a few moments reflection would convince every person, that the course being pursued by the majority was a correct one. It is well known that the Senator from Rush and the Senator from Ohio want leave of absence for next week, and yet gentlemen in the minority are asking us to postpone this matter till the very time the gentlemen named will be absent, and when it is also known that both these gentlemen will vote on our side.
Mr. COBB (interposing.) Any time next week or week after, that gentlemen will suggest would be consented to by the minority. If the Senator's friends are out at any time when the vote may be taken, he will find me voting with him to put off the ballot until his friends shall be present. I want a fair expression from every member.
Mr. CASON. The majority do not feel that they would be discharging their duty were they to permit this important question to lie still until week after next; for one he would rather sacrifice his seat in the Senate than todo so. We feel that it would be doing a wrong not only to persons in slavery but to our own self-respect, patriotism and magnanimity. Shall the State of Indiana lag, hesitate and be placed in the attitude before the world that she does not know how to act upon this important question ?
Mr. McCLURG withdrew his motion.
Mr. BENNETT discussed the question at length. He said be should discuss the question with no party feelings. All political parties had at times advocated anti-slavery principles. He stated the purposes of the resolution, and contended that there could be no question of the constitutionality of the measure proposed, as the Constitution itself provides for the course pursued in express terms. The only question was one of expediency. He contrasted the systems of freedom and slavery, and said they began their race in this continent at the same time. Slavery took for it course the line of the sunny South. He pronounced a eulogy on the soil, clime, and natural advantages of the South, but said slavery had scattered all over the beautiful country ignorance, poverty, crime, libertinism, amalgamation, treason, and death. That it had left as the evidences of its civilization, the slave whip, human scars, and human groans, bloody battlefields, blackened desolation, and utter despair. Freedom took for its course the frozen North, the icy lakes and snowy mountains. That it had scattered all over its track, learning, science, Christianity, and the highest order of nobility--that founded on free labor. That it had left as the evidences of its civilization churches, colleges, school houses, happy homes, and a free people.
He said slavery never had any rights save those guaranteed by the Constitution; that everything else good in heaven or on earth had condemned the monstrous iniquity. The good men of this and every other age bad borne witness again at the "sum of all villainies." He read copious extracts from the speeches and writings of prominent men of all ages, of statesmen, clergymen, lawyers and philosophers, to prove the crime of slavery, and said that while the Constitution implies or sanctions slavery, it was the expectation and hope of its framers that emancipation would ensue, and slavery soon become extinct. If they had ever dreamed that the monstrous evil would not only seek to live, but to control the Republic; that defeated, disappointed, thwarted, it would seek to destroy the government it could not rule, it would attempt by civil war to ruin the nation, they would have strangled the monster ia its infancy; and not left it as a bloody inheritance to their posterity.
He discussed the question of the rights of property, and contended that no Northern man, and no Southern loyal man, would lose a single iota of his inalienable right to " life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," by the adoption of this measure. The only men who would be injured, and the only men for whom Northern pro-slavery men can be mourning, are the Southern traitors; men who have insulted our flag, trampled our Constitution under foot; the uncircumcised, unregerated, unhung and undamned scoundrels whose hands are to-day page: 182[View Page 182] dripping with the blood of our brothers and our sons. He allowed Senators, representing a State that had furnished one hundred and seventy-five thousand soldiers for the army of the Union, would not be anxious to protect the rights of such men. They had no rights. They had not even the right to breathe the pure air of heaven, for the Constitution says, the penalty of treason is death. There was a time when the Constitutional guarantees of slavery were held sacred by us all, not because we loved slavery, but because we loved the Constitution of our fathers. But in an evil hour, without the fear of God before their eyes, and instigated,by the devil, these fiends incarnate trampled that Constitution under foot, made one of their own, told us they did not desire our guarantees, that they could protect slavery with the sword. Now by the sword let it perish, and he hoped the people would have the manhood and the wisdom to make their Constitution for freemen.
He discussed the question of negro equality, and said he had no fears on that subject. He believed the Anglo-Saxon race superior to all others; was willing to see all have a fair chance in the race of life, and if the foremost negro overtook and passed the hindmost white man, so be it; he was willing to run the race fairly, and if the nigger beat him he would give him his hat. Like all general rules, this had exceptions. He believed the man who really feared negro equality was in danger of being overtaken by the dreadful calamity. He also thought the negro soldier the equal of the Northern traitor or the Southern rebel, and thought the historian would so record them, and believed the wife and children of such a negro would be prouder of such a father and husband than the wife and children of such a white man would be of him.
He also discussed the question of what should be done with, the freed negro. Said he would, if he had time, suggest many plans that he deemed expedient, but would answer the question by asking what will the negro do with his rebel master? He was willing to leave that question to the wisdom of a benificent Creator, and the future legislation of this great country. He was glad he lived in the heroic age, and amid the brave people who had the courage and the patriotism to meet the question boldly and remove all obstacles from the pathway to our manifest destiny, and contended that we should not stop on account of blood and treasure. Our fathers did not stop they could have compromised the issues of 1776, but thanked God that they did not. They had more right to do so than we have, for they were weak and poor, and were fighting for something they never had enjoyed, while we were fighting for the blessings we have enjoyed for nearly a century, and are rich and strong. He said we should not fail. The nation was not to end by the present rebellion. It was not decreed that the old flag should be the winding sheet of the world's best hopes. God had sent the fiat forth that this nation should live forever, and neither Northern traitors or Southern rebels could crush it. The living and the dead speak to us, telling us our case is just and we shall not fail, and instanced many gallant deeds of our army and our navy in support of the hopes of our success. God was working out the future of this great country in His own peculiar and indescribable way. The sentence was written God had spoken it that when this war shall end, there shall not be through-out this great Republic a single slave; but that every human being under the aegis of the stars and stripes shall be clothed, shielded and protected by that glorious banner that flag, which will then, with all its insults avenged and its majesty vindicated, float over a land that will be in fact, as well as in soupr, ''The land of the free and the home of the brave."
Mr. BROWN, of Wells, moved that the House adjourn.
The motion was rejected.
Mr. CULLEN. Mr. President: The age in which we live is truly one of progress. Civilization and Christianity, even amid the clash of arms and the thunder of battle, lift their peerless heads above the storm and beckon Americans to a higher and more glorious destiny, The Thirty-eighth Congress of the United States have written in characters of living light their names immortal. In obedience to the unmistakable voice of an intelligent, free constituency, and in accordance with the promptings of their own better natures, our servants in the National Councils have taken the incipient steps (which only require to be followed up by us) " to proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants thereof." Sir, as a citizen of Indiana, and as a humble member of this body, representing to a feeble way a portion of her most patriotic and loyal people, I would prove recreant to my trust, and unworthy so distinguished an honor, were I not to take up this key note of freedom as it comes from our National Capital and re-echo it in the ears of the people of Indiana.
Slavery, the foulest blot upon our escutcheon and that which has caused four years of unparalleled and unprecedented bloody strife, is now in process of speedy and ultimate extinction. Who cannot, who does not rejoice? Sir, when the people of my county, with bowed bends and moistened eyes, visit the graves of Gen. Hackelman and Col. Wolfe, two as brave officers as ever met a foe, or fell in battle, upon whose comely forms they used to look, and upon whose lips of wisdom they were wont to hang with peculiar pride and pleasure, and remember that to slavery and a slaveholders' rebellion their noble lives were sacrificed, think you, sir, they will not rejoice amidst their grief in the knowledge of the fact that the cause of all this is removed, and that their heroes died martyrs freedom and universal liberty. Shall it be said of me, as the representative of their widows and orphan children upon this floor, that I refused to lend my influence to remove the cause of their woes? God forbid.
But, Mr. President, aside from these feelings and influences, permit me to urge a few reasons why Indiana, in my judgment, should hasten to ratify the action of Congress in the abolition of slavery.
First, then, our character as a Christian Nation demands it. Although we may boast of our civilization, our progress in the arts and sciences, and love to linger at the shrine of page: 183[View Page 183] American authors and teachers in morals and ethics, there is but one standard by which we as Nations and individuals can be judged that is the Bible, whose every word of inspiration is declares ''that of one blood God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth,"and for their further guidance declared, "whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them." There can be no christianity, Mr. President, in that system which mocks at the sacred ties of marriage, separates at will of masters husband and wife, parent and child, dooming them and their posterity to perpetual servitude. While we have called ourselves Christians and sent forth our Missionaries with the light of the Gospel in hands to enlighten the dark places of earth, we had well nigh forgotten that a darkness more terrible, a gloom more appalling bad settled upon portions of our own beloved land while surrounding nations have truth fully aid to us: ''Pluck out the beam that is in thine own eye, that thou mayest see more clearly to take out the mote that is in thy brother's." --Shall Christian America stand alone enfolding this curse to her bosom, while all the leading powers of earth have abolished it? Are we less Christian than England, France, Russia, Holland? It now remains for us to answer this question.
But, Mr. President, there are other reasons which should impel us to act, and to act promptly in this matter.
The system of slavery has been the disturbing element in our society, the Pandora box from whence all our troubles have flown since the wheels since the wheels of government were set in motion, Aye, sir, it had well nigh prevented its formation; and nothing but humiliation and compromise on the part of our fathers with this iniquity would suffice to give birth to our nationality; and since that time, all the convulsions of our country are clearly traceable to it as their chief source and fountain. In 1820-21, upon the admission of Missouri, this question shook the continent as with a terrible earthquake, from centre to circumference, and nothing but, a bowing to the behests of slaveholders in the further spread of this blighting curse, saved the nation from internal strife and civil war. In 1832, under the pretext of the tariff question, but in reality to protect the labor of slaves, South Carolina, under the leadership of Calhoun, threatened secession and intestine war. In 1850, upon the admission of California, our Government rocked to and fro like a cradle, and the wisest of our statesmen could see nothing but dissolution and grim visaged war, in all directions; when, from his retirement, the Sage of Ashland stepped forward, and with his mighty voice spoke peace to the troubled waters. " From 1854 to 1856, the virgin soil of Kansas was watered freely with the blood of its own citizens in a contest between slavery and freedom. In 1860, and from that time to this, war bloody, desolating, destructive war, with all its sacrifices of life, health and treasure, slavery has ushered and kept upon us.
Slavery has indeed, Mr. President, clad our nation in the habiliaments of mourning. Scarcely a hearthstone, from the princely mansion in the city to the humblest cabin in the forest, but from which some loved form is missing. It has dotted our land with new made graves; drawn sighs from hearts unused to mourn, and tears from eyes unused to weep. Sir, while we behold these pictures of sadness, shall we as Indiana Senators, proud of the heroic deeds of our soldiery, refuse to concur in removing the blighting, withering curse?
Shall we refuse to profit by the plain lessons of the past? Or shall we again compromise with it, by healing over the surface, that it may break forth in the future upon our children with even more terrible fury than it has upon us? For let me say, that slavery fosters and builds up an aristocracy which is inimical to every principle of republican government, and when it has grown sufficient in power, it will never fail to grapple with it for supremacy. This, it seems to me, is the plain teaching of history and philosophy, which cannot have escaped the observation of Senators.
Another reason, Mr. President, why we should act in this matter is, that the people of Indiana, (whose servants we are,) have spoken in unmistakable terms at the late election upon this subject, and he who refuses to act in accordance with their desire, deserves to be beaten with many political stripes. In the election of Mr. Lincoln on the 8th day of November last, by an unprecedented majority and with almost perfect unanimity, they ratified his official acts, the chief and most glorious of which was the famous Emancipation Proclamation. This is a record, which in the language of one of Indiana's noblest sons, "will confirm the doubtful, fix the wavering, and cheer the patriot on to duty."
Mr. President, slavery has not only proven a moral and political Incubus, but has greatly retarded our educational progress as a nation. One of the vital principles, and that which is truly the American's boast, is the general equality of condition as to educational facilities. I speak now of the education of the masses. And while I would not institute comparisons between two sections of our country in a boasting or unkind spirit, nor yet with a view to underrate the natural intellect of the South, I may be permitted to advert to a few facts which history develops, to show the superiority in matter of culture of the one over the other. In the free States there were 248,725 native adults that could neither read nor write, while in the slave States there were 493 026. In the free States there were in 1852, 62,433 public schools, while in the slave States there were but 18,507. In the free States there is not an inhabited township but that boasts of its comfortable school houses, while in the South there are whole counties devoid of these essential nurseries of wisdom and true manhood. In a recent letter from one of our army correspondents who accompanied Gen. Sherman in his march through Georgia, (as enlightened a State perhaps as any that has cherished the institution of slavery,) he remarks that he met with scores of men, women and children who could not tell even in what county they resided.
Why this great disparity? Is it because the North is the oldest settled portion of the country? No; the reverse is true. Is it be- page: 184[View Page 184] [be]cause we are their natural superiors is intellect? No; the reason is not found here. It is found Mr. President, in the fact that the institution of slavery builds up and educates the few upon the labor of the poorer classes.
The same state of facts we find to exist, and the same causes operating to produce them, in the material improvements of the respective sections. But I shall not now stop to enumerate statistical facts with which all are acquainted upon this branch of the subject.
Permit me, in conclusion, Mr. President, to say, that whether or not Indiana shall stand alone among her sisters in refusing her concurrence in this act, slavery is a doomed institution. It is virtually dead, and all that remains to be done is a decent burial. This war, and the progress of our arms, which is has invoked, has proven fatal to its existence, and as well might we stand at the foot of Niagara's cataract and attempt to throw back its leaping waters with our hands, as to attempt to impede the onward rushing current of freedom.
And then came the recess for dinner.
