UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
NO COMPROMISE WITH TREASON. 
 
 EEMAKKS 
 
 ME/SCHENCK, OF OHIO, 
 
 REPLY fO MR. FERNANDO WOOD, OF NEW YORK 
 
 IN THE DEBATE ON THE RESOLUTION 
 
 TO EXPEL MR. LONG. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF EEPEE8ENTA.TIVES, APRIL 11, 1864. 
 
 Mk. Speaker : A student iu natural history would have 
 much to learn upon this floor. Some specimens of the snake 
 family are so slippery that il seems impossible to classify them 
 or to hold them to any place. 
 
 I find myself at a great loss to understand what ground is 
 occupied by the gentleman from New York, (Mr. Fernando 
 Wood,) who has just taken his seat. He avows that he dis- 
 agrees to the position taken by the member from Maryland, 
 (Mr. Harris,) who was yesterday visited with the censure of 
 the House ; he dissents from the arguments and propositions 
 of my colleague, (Mr. Long,) whose case we are now consid- 
 ering; and yet he says to his fellow-copperheads, those, if any 
 there be, who crawl with him, that there is no such thing as a 
 War Democrat, for a' creature of that kind is anomalous. 
 [Laughter.] I may be pardoned, therefore, if I have difficulty 
 in comprehending his own nature or knowing exactly where 
 in the scale to place him. 
 
 But at the close of his remarks the gentleman from New 
 York seemed in some small degree to develop his peculiar 
 views and purposes. He laid down something like the same 
 platform in resolutions which he early in the session oifered 
 in this House. Being neither against the war nor for the • 
 war, he would send commissioners to Richmond to treat with 
 those arrayed in arms against the country, to offer them terms 
 of peace. He preaches a " new gospel of peace," of which 
 he is the great apostle. 
 
 How many others on his side of the House may agree with 
 him I know not. But I do know this : whenever any such 
 
propositions of Northern Democrats have appeared in public 
 print, or their offers or suggestions of peace have been made 
 in form, they have invariably been received by the rebels at 
 Riclimond with scoffing and repelled with scorn. Their rebel 
 friends have not hesitated to declare that such advances, and 
 the emissaries who might convey them, could only be enter- 
 tained by them with fingers holding their offended aristocratic 
 noses. [Laughter.] Tliat only is the way in which they will 
 receive Democrats who come to offer them peace. You 
 must not "come between the wind and their nobility." 
 
 The gentleman and his friends, then, are willing and pi'o- 
 pose to crawl on their bellies to the feet of rebel^,and insur- 
 gents in arms, and, looking up piteously, to say : " Oh, our 
 masters, notwithstanding all your scoffing and scorn, and 
 though you may spurn us from your presence, we implore 
 you to say whether you will not graciously agree to make 
 some terms with us."' I cannot comprehend this abasement. 
 
 Thank God, I belong to no such party as that. For the sake 
 of manhood and humanity, I would trust there are few who 
 do. I never will make peace with armed rebels. I am for con- 
 cluding no treaties, holding no conferences with insurgent 
 States chiiming to an independent,, separate nationality. [Sup- 
 pressed applause.] I believe that the only safety for this coun- 
 try consists in fighting owt this war to the end, and suppressing 
 this rebellion; in taking care to put it down so effectually 
 that its hydra head will never be raised in the land again. I 
 think that that too may be assumed as the sentiment of this 
 House, and its resolved purpose. 
 
 Let me refer to what was the action here on some proposi- 
 tions I had the honor myself to submit some time ago in a 
 series of resolutions. Li order to refresh the recollection of 
 members on both sides of the House I beg to recur to the offi- 
 cial record. I find by the Journal of the 20th of February 
 last that I moved the adoption of three resolutions, of which 
 the first was in these words : 
 
 ' Rcaolved. That the present wiir which this Government is carrying on 
 against armed insurrectionists and others, banded tog/tner under the name of 
 'Southi'rn Confederacy,' was bronght on by a wicked and wholly nnjiistifiable 
 rebellion, and those engaged in, or aiding, or encouraging that lebeilion, are 
 public enemies, and should be treated as such." . 
 
 How was that resolution received ? It passed without ob- 
 jection ; not one dissenting voice; no opposition whatever: 
 not even a call for the yeas and naye. )^y general consent 
 the Representatives of the people of the United States ac- 
 ceptcd that as one plank in the platform upon whicii they, as 
 a component part of the Government, were willing to stand 
 in their efforts to put down tliis wicked and infamous rebel- 
 lion. 
 
The next resolution is in these terms : 
 
 "•'Resolved, That this rebeliion shall be efifectually put down- and that to 
 prevent the recurrence of such rebellion in future the causes which led to this 
 one must be permanently removed." 
 
 Some gentleman upon the other side of the House called 
 for a division of the question, and asked that a vote mio-ht 
 first be taken upon the proposition " that this rebellion slfall 
 be efiectually put down." Upon that one hundred and twenty- 
 five gentlemen voted in the affirmative, and not one in the 
 negative. It passed unanimously. 
 
 And here, in passing, I may remark that among that one 
 hundred and twenty-five was my colleague, (Mr. Long,) whose 
 case is now under consideration. He then voted his opinion 
 as a member of the House of Eepresentatives that this re- 
 bellion ought to be effectually put down. It is for him and 
 for the country to reconcile, if it be possible, that declaration, 
 then solemnly made by his recorded vote, with his belief now 
 announced that the rebellion cannot be put down, and thai 
 there remains nothing for us but to recognize that insurrec- 
 tionary pretended government, and to accept it as one of the 
 nationalities of the world. 
 
 The remaining clause of that second resolution was like- 
 wise carried by the unanimous consent of the House. Gen- 
 tlemen upon the other side affected to believe that ''the causes 
 of the rebellion " were not what I plainly intended— slavery 
 and the slave power, and the slave influence in this country ; 
 and so we united, they construing the language of the reso- 
 lution in one way, and I and all the Union members here in 
 another. By that motion, then, perhaps nothing was taken. 
 Under such a subterfuge gentlemen escaped the issue I pre- 
 sented. 
 
 But there remained another resolution, the third and last of 
 the series : 
 
 "Eesolved, That in this struggle which is going on for the saving of our 
 country and free government, there is no middle ground on which any good 
 citizen or true patriot can stand ; neutrality, or indifference, or anything short 
 of a hearty support of the Government, being a crime, where the question is 
 between loyalty and treason." 
 
 That resolution also passed this House by a unanimous vote 
 The gentleman from New York, (Mr. Fernando Wood,) was 
 not present ; and some who were present did not vote ; but 
 one hundred and nine, being all that did vote upon the qnes- 
 tion, recorded their names in the affirmative. Again there was 
 not one negative. My colleague, whose case we have now 
 before us, was here. He had voted on the previous resolu- 
 tion but declined to answer upon this. With some fifteen other 
 gentlemen upon that side of the House he preferred to dodge 
 
the issue, and thej avoided being bronglit to a test whether 
 they believed in such middle ground or not. 
 
 IJpon this middle ground, upon which it was agreed no pa- 
 triot or true man can stand, the gentleman from New York, 
 (Mr. Fernando Wood,) selects his uncertain footing. It is the 
 dark, oozy, unwholesome soil, between the solid earth on either 
 side, over which unclassified copperheads do ci'eep and mark 
 their slimy and doubtful track. 
 
 But what assurance have we that the member from New 
 York is going to occupy hereafter atld consistently even the 
 ground he has assumed to-day ? He says he is no disunionist. 
 He declares against the war ; he is for compromise ; for ne- 
 gotiation with rebels ; for peace to be acquired in that way. 
 Yet like my colleague, (Mr. Long,) he would not think of 
 giving up the integrity of the Union. But what are his an- 
 tecedents? Where stood he at the begiiming and after the 
 beginning of this great struggle for the life of the nation? 
 
 1 will turn aside here for a moment to consider, as one of 
 the remarkable passages in the speech of my colleague, (Mr. 
 Long,) the account he has sought to impose upon the country 
 of the commencement of the war ; and then I will see if we 
 can find what position was in that earlier day taken by the 
 gentleman from New York. 
 
 My colleague, (Mr. Long,) in the speech for the utterance 
 of which he is now held to account before the House, l>as 
 said that hostilities against the Government of the United 
 States did not commence until after the inauguration of Pres- 
 ident Lincoln. He declares that those hostilities were brought 
 on by the desire of the President of the United States ; and, 
 the country being drawn into it by a trick, the war proceeded . 
 and from that point has been progressing. That I may not 
 l;e supposed to misrepresent his language I will read from the 
 report of his speech as I have it now before me. 
 
 '■A secret meeting of the Governors of a number of States was soon after 
 held in this cit}-. A scheme was devised and a vessel sent out, under pretense 
 of furnisliing provisions to the troops with Major Anderson in Fort Sumter. 
 On arriving in Charleston harbor the people of that city fired upon the fort. 
 The telegrupli bore the news to tliis city, and on its first mention to the Presi- 
 dent lie exclaimed, 'I knetu they wonld do it ;' which to my mind i.« conclusive 
 that it WHS intended expressly fpr that purpose. Seventy-five thousand men 
 were immediately called for; war was inaugurated; twenty days were given 
 the insurgents to lay down tlieir arms; an additional five hundred thousand 
 men were soon called for ; iiostilities commenced." 
 
 That, Mr. Si)eaker, professes to be history ; and yet a more 
 gross, more uiiwarruutable, bolder perversion and misrepre- 
 seutatioii of facts was never perhaps presented to the public 
 ear. Hostilities cominenced? When? After Mr. Lincoln 
 was inauguiated, he says, and not until then; after relief had 
 been eent tu the garrison at Fort Sumter; after relief had 
 
been sent there for the very pnrpose of provoking hostilities; 
 after troops had been called out time and again to put down 
 the insurgents. Now, is it not well known that before Mr. 
 Lincoln, by inauguration, became the President of the United 
 States, as early as in the December previous, our own western 
 steamboats were attacked and our travel and commerce 
 stopped and interrupted by batteries planted for that purpose 
 on the banks of the Mississippi river by order of the rebel 
 Governor of one of the rebel States? Is it not known to all 
 that in January, 1861, an ocean steamer, the Star of the West, 
 bearing our flag, was fired upon as she entered the harbor of 
 Charleston and compelled to turn and put to sea, as from a 
 hostile port? And yet, my colleague here, in the face of these 
 and other notorious facts, as I have heard others equally reck- 
 less elsewhere, dares, for the sake of putting his own Govern- 
 ment in the wrong, to aver that not the traitor rebels but our 
 own authorities inaugurated civil war; fixing its commence- 
 ment months after these events had transpired. 
 
 But to return. I said I would refer to this with a view to 
 the former position of the gentleman from ISlew York, (Mr. 
 Feknando Wood.) Whenever and however hostilities com- 
 menced, where then was he, and what was his relation to the 
 great rebellious movement by which was sought to be de- 
 stroyed the integrity and unity of his country ? 
 
 When our difficulties with the South were ripening into 
 war, when hostilities were actually commenced, when it was 
 not known how far disaflection might extend throughout the 
 several States of this Union, there was a mayor of New York 
 who proposed that that city should secede from the Govern- 
 ment of the United States, and set up for itself as a " Free 
 City," on tlie pattern of independent political communities 
 of that sort known on the European continent. 
 
 Mr. Fernando Wood. Mr. Speaker — 
 
 The Speaker j97'(? tempore. Does the gentleman from Ohio 
 yield to the gentleman from New York ? 
 
 Mr. ScHENCK. I cannot be interrupted, sir, but will con- 
 tinue as the gentleman insisted on doing when others sought 
 to interrupt him. 
 
 Not that alone, sir; the same mayor of New York, after re- 
 bellion was already rampant, when boxes filled with arms 
 were stopped by the loyal authorities on the wharves of New 
 York, and not permitted to go South, that weapons might be 
 put into the hands of those infernal scoundrels who were seek- 
 ing to overthrow the Government and the country — that same 
 mayor, on being telegraphed to, replied that he regretted he 
 had no power over the matter, or he would gladly prevent 
 any interference with such transmission of these munitions 
 of war. 
 
Mr. Feknanuo Wood. Mr. Speaker- 
 Mr. ScHENCK. Yes, I know that that has been denied here, 
 a short time ago, by that gentleman on this floor, and without 
 hearing him now, 1 give him the benefit of that denial. But 
 he shall also have the benefit of the positive proof, produced 
 and published widely in the papers of New York a few days 
 afterwards, nailing upon him the falsity of the denial which 
 he presented to this House. 
 
 Mr. Fernando Wood. Mr. Speaker — 
 
 Mr. ScHENCK. I am not to be interrupted by that member. 
 
 Mr. Fernando Wood. The gentleman states what is false. 
 
 Mr. Schenck. I have met rebels before, when they had 
 something more than tongues with which to contend, and I 
 am not to be interrupted or put down by the member from 
 JSTew York. As that gentleman has entertained the House 
 by the reading of some precious extracts, I propose also to 
 send something to the Clerk's desk to be read. It is an ex- 
 tract from a paper recently published in his own city. 
 
 The Clerk read, as follows : 
 
 " Mr. Fernando Wood has the effrontery to deny, in the House, that while 
 mayor of New York he sent a despatch to Georgia regretting that arms in- 
 tended for that State had been stopped in New York. He averred that his 
 dispatch related to merchandise only. Here are the dispatches : 
 
 " MiLLEDGEViLLE, /a?mary 24, 1861. 
 'To his Honor Mayor Wood : 
 
 " Is it true that any arms intended for and consigned to the State of Georgia 
 have been seized by public authorities in New York? Your answer is impor- 
 tant to us and to New York. Answer at once. 
 
 E. TOOMBS. 
 "To this the mayor returned the following answer: 
 
 "Hon. Robert Toombs, Milledgeville, Georgia: 
 
 "In reply to your dispatch I regret to saj' that arms intended for and con- 
 signed to the State of Georgia have been seized by the police of this State, but 
 that the city of New York should in no way be made responsible for the 
 outrage. 
 
 " As mayor, I have no authority over the police. If I had the power I should 
 summarily punish the authors of this illegal and unjustifiable seizure of private 
 property. FERNANDO WOOD. 
 
 Now, what excuse will Mr. Wood have to offer the House" 
 
 Mr. SciiKNoK. That will do. I will ask the question 
 myself; ask it, too, under the light of the further fact that six 
 days before that attempt to give comfort to rebels in arms, 
 Georgia had solemly declared her secession from the Union, 
 and set herself up by that solemn act in open rebellion. 
 
 It was an " outrage" not to send arms ; and he is no war 
 Democrat! Sir, he is a war Democrat, but what kind of a 
 war Democrat ? His " war Democracy" consists in an in- 
 d'>rsement of a war by his fellow-rioters, led forward under the 
 
influence of his teachings in New York, who foully and cruelly 
 ijiurdered, among others, even one of the othcers of your noble 
 army, while wearing the national uniform ! 
 
 Oh, no; probably he shyik away in the midst of that 
 riot. Probably he was not ^en in the street. Probably he 
 lield no weapon in his hand and applied no torch to any dwel- 
 ling. But who does not know that it was the uniform teach- 
 ings of him and his school that roused that angry, that unre- 
 flecting, that ignorant populace into deeds of violence, of ruin, 
 of rapine, of murder, in which it indulged? 
 
 And now he stands heK3 talking smoothly about peace, and 
 about being no war Democrat ! 
 
 But, sir, I have another reminiscence for him. There was 
 a time when he was a war Democrat — aye, and a war Demo- 
 crat of the true stripe, too — not a war against defenceless 
 women and children in the streets of New York. 
 
 After he had proposed the secession of the city of Xew 
 York, after he regretted that he could not help Georgia with 
 arms, he became, on the 20th day of April, 1861. alarmed by 
 the roused indignation and swelling voices of a then whole, 
 united, loyal people, and met and addressed that people at 
 their great meeting in Union square. And there he pledged 
 liimself to assembled thousands that he was lor the war, and 
 was for the Union. I apprehend he found it convenient to 
 have it understood then that he was a war Democrat, just 
 like those whom he now denounces around him. 
 
 Perhaps he will deny this too. Let him. Happening to 
 be present in New York, and invited, I spoke on that occa- 
 sion — you may call it honor or dishonor, as you will — from 
 the same stand with him to those assembled thousands. I 
 had no acquaintance with him, but I stood near him while-he 
 was thus delivering himself and making those loyal pledges 
 and avowals. 
 
 I sa}', therefore, that I do not know what kind of a war De- 
 mocrat he may be hereafter ; whether he will be against his 
 own people and the Government of the United States, as he 
 is now ; or against the insurgents, as he was then. His present 
 profession is to be neither, but to crawl along on the border 
 between the two and try neutrality, which has never yet been 
 attempted by any State or people that it has not proved their 
 curse and ruin. But, sir, he would propose terms of peace, 
 and that peace he would ofler to those who scorn him. He 
 insists on seeking those who will extend to him no hand of 
 welcome at his coming. 
 
 Sir, I must believe that he sings this siren song of peace 
 only for the effect he hopes it may have at home. Party is 
 with him before country. And thus he prostrates himself, as 
 I have said, at tlie feet of insurgents in arms and cries implor- 
 
ingly to them, " Do with ns as you will, tear from the flag of 
 onr glorious Union half its gleaming stripes, blot out as many 
 of those stars as you cau reach and extinguish; only join us 
 again that you may help us to restore the Democratic party, 
 so that we may hereafter, as heretofore, enjoy power and the 
 offices together. For these we will so humble ourselves as 
 none of God's creatures ever humbled themselves before." 
 (Laughter.] 
 
 Mr. Speaker, the member from New York has been occupy- 
 ing the time of the House with the reading of a great number 
 of extracts to show the position of certain men pi'ior to this 
 war, or about the time of its commencement. Some of these 
 extracts are attributed to abolitionists, some to men of other 
 parties ; but he strings them all together, seeking thereby, if he 
 can, to fill his magazine with weapons of assault against the 
 Government and against this side of the Chamber. 
 
 I did not listen to much that was read. I care little for it 
 for the purposes of this argument. But I did observe, in the 
 course of that reading, that when it happened in two or three 
 instances that he gave what purported to be the sentiments 
 or declarations of certain members of this body now here 
 present, those extracts were promptly denounced as forgeries, 
 indorsed though they were by the reputable member from 
 New York. It is not unlikely that these spurious specimens 
 indicate the character of the whole collection. 
 
 But, sir, I am not here to defend any man. I am not here 
 to inquire whether this man or the other was an Abolitionist, 
 a Democrat, a Whig, or a Republican ; or what may have 
 been their utterances, prudent or imprudent, wise or unwise, 
 patriotic or unpatriotic, on any other or former occasion ; 
 whether they were right or wrong then. That has all gone 
 by. Men might very widely differ and differently express 
 themselves on the eve of such a convulsion. They might 
 widely differ, too, as to what course was most expedient to be 
 pursued in order to avert the great calamity of war from the 
 land. 
 
 Three years have now gone by. We are in the midst of 
 that war. Armies are confronting armies : bayonets are 
 crossed M'ith bayonets. The arguments now to be used and the 
 only arguments to be used are the incisive, cutting reasonings 
 of the sword, the shar])-pointed renuirk of the l)ayonet, the 
 knock down conclusion of the bursting bombshell. It is in 
 the midt^t of such fierce and practical debate as this that the 
 gentleman from New York comes forward and proposes to 
 yield to the arrogant and insolent demands of parricide rebels, 
 bearing in his hands as precedents his collection of extracts, 
 genuine oi- otherwise, culled from what may have been 
 Nvritten in other times and under other circumstances. If he 
 
9 
 
 made those quotations for any purpose at all it could only 
 have been to show that others had stood upon his ground. 
 But the difference of occasion is as wide as heaven from hell. 
 Admit that those men were wrong, admit that they were all 
 at fault in proposing, if they did do so, any such expedients. 
 It only follows that they did not then as now understand the 
 true character of our people, or the power of self-preservation 
 which rests in' our Government. What parrallel is there be- 
 tween such hesitation then, and the concessions which would 
 be made by this man here now upon this floor, and almost in 
 the ver}' presence of the public enemy ? 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I can understand how, in the Revolution, when 
 these States, then colonies, broke away from the mother coun- 
 try, many a man who was attached to monarchical institutions, 
 or fearful of rushing upon the untried experiment of a new 
 form of government* to be reached through the horrors of war, 
 might have shrunk back and been a Tory of that day. 
 
 But how, after the better part of a century has gone by, 
 and this great Government, under the Constitution adopted 
 at the close of that Revolution, has gone on prospering 
 and to prosper, when it has made its mark high on the roll 
 of nations, and the hopes of a world have clustered around 
 it — how any one with this history and triumph before him can 
 to-day doubt or distrust or bargain away his country's nation- 
 ality, is more than I can comprehend. I declare, sir, that in my 
 opinion the worst Tory of the Revolution was a patriot and a 
 gentleman, compared with a copperhead of 1S64. [Applause.] 
 
 Mr. Speaker, we are, as I have stated, in the presence of the 
 enemy. Every man in this Union is to-day, in one sense, a 
 citizen soldier. Our people are either in the lines of the Union 
 army in front, facing and fighting the foe, or they are in the 
 rear, striving by every means possible to strengthen and ad- 
 vance the common cause. 
 
 I repeat, ever}- man is a citizen soldier ; and we who arc 
 here no less so than others. jSTow, when a soldier is marching 
 with the army toward the enemy, or holding his place in line 
 of battle re&dy to meet the onset or to make the charge, if 
 that soldier — and I beg pardon of our honest, brave fellows in 
 the field for even making such a supposition — if that soldier, 
 instead of attending to his stern and grim purpose, to the con- 
 sideration how he shall best acquit himself in the deadly 
 struggle before him, and to the duty which lies present there 
 for him to do, should turn to his comrades about him, saying 
 to one, " We cannot beat the enemy ;" to another, " We had 
 better lay down our arms;'*' to another, " Ourcause is wrong; 
 we never can conquer;" and to another, "Let us demand of 
 our commanding officer to stop shedding blood, and .have a 
 truce between the two armies" — if a soldier at such a time 
 
10 
 
 should talk thus in the ranks, what would you do with him ( 
 You would shoot him ! 
 
 And is a citizen soldier who undertakes to breed distraction 
 in the country, who claims that we cannot put down the re- 
 bellion, who insists that the rebellion, in his view, is alto- 
 gether right and justifiable, who would compromise, who 
 would temporize, who would have his Government debased 
 to the condition of begging peace from armed and insolent 
 insurgents-^-is he less deserving of execration and punish- 
 ment ? Though we may not execute sueli a man on the ap- 
 propriate gallows erected for criminals, yet, thank God, there 
 is a gibbet of public opinion where we can hang him high 
 as Haman and hold him there, the scorn of all nations and of 
 the world ! [Applause.] 
 
 A few words now more directly to the resolution before 
 the House. I wish I had a§ much strength — having just risen 
 from a sick bed — as I have desire to go on a little further with 
 this examination. • 
 
 The resolution proposes the expulsion of a member of this 
 House. It proposes expulsion for the use of language in de- 
 bate upon this floor. 
 
 The first objection taken to this resolution is that its pass- 
 age would be a dangerous interference with the liberty of 
 speech. You mnst not abridge the freedom of debate in these 
 Halls, devoted to the discussion of great interests upon the 
 right adjustment of which the future prosperity of our coun- 
 tiy depends. 
 
 And, sir, there is something plausible in that objection. 
 Freedom of speech in a free Government is indeed impor- 
 tant ; and the full privilege of fearless and unrestrained de- 
 bate is nowhere more important than in these Halls of legis- 
 lation, where we are meeting and settling the gravest and 
 deepest questions. This principle was not overlooked, we are 
 to believe, by the fathers wlio framed our national Constitu- 
 tion. Yet the gentlenaan from Kentucky, (Mr. Malloky,) 
 who quoted the Constitution yesterday on this point, most 
 strangely. omitted a material and significant po*-tion of the 
 clause which he cited. He rose in his place and called 
 solemnly upon the country — called upon you and called upon 
 this House — to witness that here was an attempt to muzzle a 
 Kepresentative of the people, and that, too, in violation of 
 our organic law, which in very terms provides that " no^mem- 
 ber shall be questioned for any speech or debate in 'either 
 House." Surprised at such assertion, I took occasion then to 
 remind him that that was by no means all the Constitution 
 says upon that subject. In treating of the powers of Con- 
 gress, it provides, among other things, that Senators and Eep- 
 resentatives 
 
11 
 
 " Shall in all cases, except treasou, felony, and breach of the peace, be priv- 
 ileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective 
 Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or 
 debate in either House, they shall not be questioned i?i any other place'' 
 
 Ah, sir, " iyi any other place.''' While the tVamers of thit 
 sacred iastriiraent were taking care jealously to protect and 
 hedge around this freedom of debate, so that the.Eepresen- 
 tatives of the people might he -left to speak fearlessly and 
 without favor here on all subjects, and free from any liability 
 to be called to account for such speech elsewhere, they with 
 equal wisdom took care to put in a condition that each House . 
 was expected to see to and preserve its own purity and charac- 
 ter. The House was to take care that there should be nothing- 
 said or done here, here above all other places, which should 
 be prejudicial to good order or inimical to the liberties of 
 this country ; nothing which might tend to give up or aban- 
 don' or break down the very Government itself. I do not 
 wonder that gentlemen engaged in the desperate cause of .de- 
 fending treasonable utterances ou this floor should be unwill- 
 ing to quote the whole language of the Constitution, but 
 should garble, clip, travesty it, and keep out of view that 
 which was put there by wtse foresight to meet exactly such 
 cases as this in hand. 
 
 But gentlemen make another defense. They say the words 
 of my colleague were not treasonable utterances. 
 
 In one sense they are right. Treason is defined by law and 
 by the Constitution. It consists not in language, but in cer- 
 tain overt acts, and it can be proved only by certain measure 
 and degrees of testimony. But it does not necessarily follow 
 that when you are arraigning a member for language improper, 
 to be used, or acts improper to be done, upon this floor, you 
 must try him only as if by strict forms and rules of a law in 
 a judicial court. I can conceive many instances in which 
 oftense might be given here, requiring the intervention of the 
 House and calling for its severest punishment, where there 
 has been notliing even savoring of treason. A member might 
 make an indecent exposure of his person ; he might use lan- 
 guage so profane and obscene and oflensive in character as to 
 require that he should be instantly expelled, and no more and 
 no longer be permitted to remain as one of our body, and yet 
 not be guilty of treason or of any other crime defined by the 
 statutes of the country. 
 
 I am not, therefore, in supporting this resolution, driven to 
 the necessity of taking the ground that treason has been com- 
 mitted. And when I say that the language used was treason- 
 able, I mean to be understood in this qualified sense, that 
 while there may not have been a crime committed for which 
 he might be -held to account before the other tribunals of the 
 
12 
 
 country, yet such words being uttered here and at this par- 
 ticular time, flagrante hello, with the rebel force at our very 
 doors, they become in their tendency and effect encourage- 
 ment to the rebellion and an instigation to the enemies of the 
 nation to go on in their attempts to overthrow it. 
 
 Now, sir, I was hot present when my colleague, (Mr. 
 Long,) delivered his speech. I was in my room, unable by 
 reason of illness to be in my place. But I have a full, offi- 
 cial, and authorized report of that speech ; and to satisfy me 
 that he deserves the heavy punishment proposed, I do not 
 need to look any farther than to passages in it which strike 
 my eye now as I hold it here in my hand. I will read : 
 
 " Mr. Chairman, I have deemed it proper thus to advert to the charges of 
 encouragement, to the confederates so repeatedly made upon this floor, and I 
 again recur to the consideration of the Union. Can the Union be restored by 
 wai' ? I answer most unhesitatingly and deliberately, No, never, ' war is 
 final, eternal separation.' " 
 
 Again, in speaking of the remarks of the gentleman from 
 Pennsylvania, (Mr. Stevens,) and in trying to ally those opin- 
 ions to his — with what want of success the gentleman from 
 Pennsylvania has most triumphantly shown — he says : 
 
 "The confederate States are out of the Union, occupying the position of an 
 independent Power de facto, have been acknowledged as a belligerent both by 
 foreign nations and our own Government, maintained their declaration of in- 
 dependence for three years by force of arms, and that the war has cut assunder 
 all the ligaments and abrogated all the obligations that bound them under the 
 Constitution." 
 
 Here, sir, I propose to make one single remark in reference 
 to.my own view of this subject — of the rights of these seced- 
 ing States and of the people of those States. I belong to that 
 class of theorists — for we all have theories on these subjects 
 — who believe that the rebels by their insurrection and mak- 
 ing war on their Government have forfeited, if we choose to 
 enforce that forfeiture, all \\iq\y rights as citizens of this coun- 
 try, and yet have not released themselves from a single one of 
 their obligations. And I hold, therefore, that we must press 
 them with tire and sword in order to bring them back again 
 into subjection to the law of the land, and to their places as 
 good and law-abiding citizens, as if they were foreigners ; and 
 at the same time we liave the right, because tliey are not for- 
 eigners and have not rid themselves of their obligations under 
 the Constitution, to treat them as traitors under the law. In 
 otlier words — to use a homely figure — we pursue them with 
 a double-barreled gun. We may shoot them as beligereuts, 
 or we may shoot them as traitors. They are subjects^ on the 
 one hand, for the sword, because they have themselves taken 
 tlie sword and brought the curse thus upon themselves; and 
 they are, on the otlier hand, the subjects also uf hemp, to be 
 
13 
 
 raised to the elevation which only properly belongs to such 
 traitors. 
 
 But my colleague, (Mr. Long,) in these remarkable utter- 
 ances of his, says that these people are entirely free, and that 
 the war has cut asunder all the ligaments and abrogated all 
 the obligations which bound them under the Constitution. 
 Mark that.. Let ns pause a moment more on that. They have 
 cut themselves free from all ligaments, and all obligations are 
 abrogated ! Then there is no such thing as a traitor in this 
 land. Then Jeff. Davis is an honest and patriotic citizen, 
 entitled to the right hand of fellowship. He has freed him- 
 self from every obligation. He owes no duty to the law. He 
 owes nothing to the Constitution. There is no possibility of 
 pursuing him and bringing him to pnnishment^vithout doing 
 him a wrong. And this is the doctrine preached here in an 
 American Congress ! And we are expected not to say that 
 the man who thus talks in his place here is unfit to hold a 
 seat in this House ! 
 
 A colleague of mine, (Mr. Garfield,) replying to that other 
 colleague, (Mr. Long,) spoke of him as a brave, bold man. 
 I agree with him. He spoke of him, also, as an honest man. 
 Well, he may be honest. That is between himself and his 
 God. But I find it difficult to understand how a man, intelli- 
 gent and able as this speech proves its author to be, can be so 
 dangerously wrong, and yet witli innocent purpose. This 
 speech he himself admits was not made on the spur of the 
 moment, but after long weeks of careful preparation, of prun- 
 ing and filing ; and it will not do to let him off on the sup- 
 position that it is a mere misapprehension or mistake on his 
 part. I accept the issue which he presents. Either he is all 
 wrong and bad on this subject, and is siding with the enemies 
 of his country, or we are all wrong. The member from ISTew 
 York says we are the disunionists. If so, sir, we have a sing- 
 ular way of showing it. We the disunionists on this side of 
 the House; we, who uphold the Government; we, who vote 
 men, money, means, all the men, all the money, all the means, 
 all the appliances for carrying on the war to crush this un- 
 holy rebellion ; we the disunionists, and he, forsooth, the 
 Simon Pure patriot of the land ! 
 
 Well, there is a class of people in this country who have al- 
 most persuaded themselves, by frequent repetition, that they 
 are in favor of the Union, while at the same time by their 
 speeches, their votes, and their actions, they refuse to do any-» 
 thing to sustain it ; men who even proclaim that they are in 
 favor of a vigorous prosecution of the war, too, and yet vote 
 against every practical measure for maintaining our armies 
 in the field. And then these men turn upon us and say, 
 *' We are with you; we are in favor of putting down this re- 
 
14 
 
 bellidn ; we believe that it can only be eifectuallj crushed by 
 the strong arm of power ; but we do not like ' the way in 
 which you are seeking to accomplish your just object. You 
 suspend the habeas corpus, you indulge in' abitrary arrests, 
 yon suppress freedom of speech. When the robber is in your 
 iiouse, you will not sit down with us and count the cost, to 
 see how much it will take to turn him out. When the mur- 
 derer is in your home, with his knife at the throat of your 
 wife and children, you do not ask him to wait, as you should, 
 till you can run to the nearest justice of the peace, make an 
 affidavit, and have him regularly arrested according to law. 
 And therefore we cannot go with you in your measures." 
 
 There is one classical precedentjfor those who take these 
 extraordinary positions which I beg to commend to gentle- 
 men upon the other side; and I know there are a good many 
 of them distinguished for their knowledge and familiarity 
 with_ the English and other classics. If they will look into 
 Gulliver's Travels, that admirable and popular satire of Dean 
 Swift, and see what judgment was passed upon the great Man 
 Mountain by his little Lilliputian friends upon the occasion 
 of his extinguishing the flames which were destroying the 
 queen's palace, they will comprehend the reasonableness of 
 their objections. It was a good thing to stop the conflagra- 
 tion, but very bad to make the most efl"ectual appliance for 
 doing it. [Great laughter.] 
 
 So there are war Democrats who cry "Down with the re- 
 bellion," while they denounce every vigorous means for put- 
 ting it down. 
 
 lint I have been drawn away from asking your attention to 
 further most objectionable portions of the speech on which 
 my colleague is arraigned. I read again : 
 
 'As will be judged, perhaps, bj' the tenor of these remarks, I am reluctantly 
 and despoudingly forced to the couclusion that the Uuiou m lost, never to be 
 restored." 
 
 Again he says : 
 
 - "What has been predicted by our wisest and most eminent statesmen has 
 come to pass; ill grasping at the shadow we have lost tlie substance; in striv- 
 ing to retain the casket of liberty in which our jewels were contine.!, we have 
 lost those previous muniments oi' freedom. Our Government, as all know, is 
 not anything rest-mbling what it was three years ago; there is not one single 
 vestige of the Constitution remarning; every clause and every letter of it has 
 been violatt-d, arid I have no idea myself that it will ever again be respected." 
 
 And again : 
 
 "Mr. Chaiiman, I take little or no interest in the discussion of the question 
 which many of my p.jlitical friefids would make an issue, as to how tliis war 
 ehjill be prosecuted, its manntr and objects. I regard that as worse than 
 triHing with the great question. I do not believe there can he any prosecution 
 of I lie war against a sovereign State under the Constitution, and J do not b«- 
 Hevc that a war fo carried on can be prosecuted so as to reader it proper, joe- 
 tifiable, or expedient" 
 
15 
 
 Then, according to this, we are engaged in a war which is^ 
 improper, unjnstitiable, inexpedient ; and which cannot be 
 prosecuted without resulting in its consequences in the de- 
 struction of our Constitution and the overthrow of all free 
 government in the land. Must these and other like expres- 
 sions, pervading the whole of this elaborate argument in fa- 
 vor of secession and against preserving the integrity of our 
 nation, go unrebuked? I trust not ; and I shall greatly have 
 mistaken the patriotism and dignity and sense of justice of 
 this House if they do. 
 
 Sir, I desire to say in conclusion, in relation to this whole 
 matter of the war and our country's trials, that I believe 
 strong remedies for desperate diseases may properly be re- 
 sorted to. I admit that constitutional power may sometimes 
 have been strained, but I am of opinion that it has not been 
 exceeded. And when gentlemen speak with such holy horror 
 of the possibility of " overleaping the Constitution in order 
 to save the country," I confess that I do not see anything so 
 terrible in that figure. What is the Constitution ? The form 
 and framework of our system, under and through which the 
 people may carry on their Government. It is, after all, the 
 form only, and not the life itself. Mark this difference. The 
 builders of this our framework have provided in itself the 
 mode of its own amendment and renovation; but no such 
 change was ever contemplated for the Nation. The Constitu- 
 tion may undergo alteration, but the ^Nation, for which it was 
 made, must be one and eternal. To those, then, who talk idly 
 of permitting this Nation to be destroyed rather than see any 
 provision of the" Constitution in the least exceeded, I say that 
 under the pretense of saving the Constitution they are mak- 
 ing war. or encouraging- those who do make war, upon the 
 Nation and People for whom that Constitution was created. 
 But we who stand by the Government would tax all the pow- 
 ers of tliat Constitutiot to the utmost that the Nation itself 
 may live. 
 
 Printed by L. Towers, cor. 6th street and Louisiana Avenue, Washington.