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NO COMPROMISE WITH TREASON. 
 
 REMARKS 
 
 MR.lcHENCK, OF OHIO, 
 
 IM 
 
 REPLY TO MR. FERNANDO WOOD, OF NEW YORK, IN 
 
 THE DEBATE ON THE RESOLUTION TO 
 
 EXPEL MR. LONG. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 11, 1864. 
 
 Ma. Speaker ; A student in natural history would have much to learn upon this 
 floor. Some specimens of the snake family are so slippery that it seems impossible 
 to classify them or to hold them to aay place. 
 
 I find myself at a great loss to understand what ground is occupied by the gen- 
 tkmaa from New York, [Mr. Fernando Wood,] who has just taken his seat. He 
 avows that he disagrees to the position taken by the member from Maryland, [Mr 
 Harrio,] 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 considering; 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 crea- 
 ture 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 offered in this 
 House. Being neither against the war nor for the war, he would send commission- 
 ers 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 ap- 
 peared in public print, or their offers or suggestions of peace have been made in 
 form, they have invariably been received bj' the rebels at Richmond 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 betenter- 
 tained by them with fingers holding their offended aristocratic noses. [Laughter.] 
 That only is tho 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 propose to crawl on their 
 bellies to the feet of rebels and insurgents in arms, and looking up piteously to say 
 " Oh, our masters, notwithstanding all your scoffing and scorn, and though yoo 
 may spurn us from your presence, we implore you to say whether you will not 
 graciously Ugree to make some terms with us." I cannot comprehend this abase- 
 ment. 
 
 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 pe toe with 
 armed rebels. I am for concluding no treaties, holding no conferences, with insur- 
 gent States claiming to be an independent separate nationality. [Suppressed ap- 
 plause.] I believe that the only safety for this country consists in fighting out thie 
 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 propositions I had the honor 
 myself to submit some time ago ia a series of resolutions. In order to refresh the 
 
recollection of members on both sides of the House I beg to recur to the official 
 record. I find by the Journal of the 29th of February last that I moved the adop- 
 tion of three resolutions, ©f which the first was in these words: 
 
 " Resolved, Tliat the present war which this Government is carrying on against armed inf urrec- 
 tionists and othe^i banded togetht-r under Ihe name of ■ southern coalVderacy, ' was brought od 
 by a wiched and wlioily unjustifiable rebellion, and all those engaged in, or aiding, or encourag- 
 ing that rebellion, are public enemies, and should be treated as such.'' 
 
 How was that resolution received? It passed without objection; not one dis- 
 senting voice ; no opposition whatever; not even a call for the yeas and nays. By 
 general consent the Representatives of the people of the United States accepted 
 that as one plank in the platform upon which they, as a component part of the 
 Government, were willing to stand in their efforts to put down this wicked and in- 
 famous rebellion. 
 
 The next resolution is in these terms : 
 
 " Resolved, That this rebellion shall be effectually put down; and that to prevent the recur- 
 rence of such rebellions in future the causes which led to this one must be permanently re- 
 moved. " 
 
 Some gentleman upon the other side of the House called for a division of the 
 question, and asked that a vote might first be taken upon tlie proposition "that 
 tnis rebellion shall be effectually 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 Representatives that this re- 
 bellion ought to be effectually piit down. It is for him and for the country to re- 
 concile, 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 insurrectionary pretended gov- 
 ernment, and to accept it as one of the nationalities of the world. 
 
 The remaining clause of that second resolution was likewise carried by the unani- 
 mous consent of the House. Gentlemen upon the other side affected to beJieve 
 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 resolution in one way, and I and all the Union mem- 
 bers here in another. By that motion, then, pei'haps nothing was taken. Under 
 such a subterfuge gentleman escaped the issue I presented. 
 
 But there remained another resolution, the third and last of the series: 
 
 " ResolveA, That in this struggle which is going on for the saving of our country and fVee Gov- 
 ermnent, there is no middle ground on which any good citizen or true patriot can stand ; neu- 
 trality, 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 pres- 
 ent did not vote ; but one hundred and nine, being all that did vote upon the ques- 
 tion, recorded their names in the afiirmative. Again there was not one negative. 
 My colleague, whose case we have now before us, was here. He had voted on the 
 previous resolution but declined to answer upon this. "With some fiftc-n other 
 gentlemen upon that side of the House he preferred to dodge the issue, and they 
 avoided being brought to a test whether they believed in such middle ground or not. 
 
 Upon this middle groimd, upon which it was agreed no patriot 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 creep, and mark their slimy and doubt- 
 ful track. 
 
 But what assurance have we that the member from New York is going to occupy 
 hereaft.r and consistently even the ground he has assumed to-day? He says he is no 
 dis nionist. He declares against the war; he is for compromise; for negotiation 
 with rebels ; for peace to be acquired in that way. Yet unlike my colleague [Mr, 
 Long] he would not think of giving up the integrity of the Union. But what are 
 his antecedents? Where stood he at the beginning and after the beginning of this 
 great struggle for the life of the nation ? • 
 
 I will turn aside here for a moment to consider as one of the remarkable passa- 
 ges 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, had said that hoatilities against the Government of the 
 
United States did not commence until after the inauguration of President 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 pro- 
 ceeded and from that point has been progressing. That I may not be supposed to 
 misrepresent his language I will read from the report of his speech as I have it how 
 before me. 
 
 "A secret meeting of the Governors of a number of Stntes was soon after held in this city. A 
 8, heme was devised and a vessel sent out, under pretense of furnishing provisions to the troops 
 with Major Anderson in Fort SunUer. On arriving in Charleston harbor the people of that city 
 fired upon the fort. The leles:rar>h bore tlie news to this city, and on its first mention to the 
 President he exclaimed. ' I knew they ^could do it;' which to my mind is conclusive that it was 
 lnten<)ed expressly for that purjiose". Seventy-flve thousand men were immediately called for 
 war was inaugurated; twenty days were given the insurgents to lay down their arms; an addi- 
 tional five hundred thousand men were soon callpd for; hostilities commenced-." 
 
 That, Mr. Speaker, professes to be history ; and yet a more gross, more unwar- 
 rantable, bolder perversion and misrepresentation of facts was never perhaps pre- 
 sented to the public ear. Hostilities commenced! When? After Mr. Lincoln was 
 inaugurated, he says, and not until then ; after relief had been sent to the garrison 
 at Fort Sumter; after relief had been sent there for the very purpose of provok- 
 ing hostilities; after troops had been called out time and again to put down the in- 
 surgents. Now, is it not well known that before Mr. Lincoln, by inauguration, be- 
 came 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 bv batteries planted for that purpose on the banks of the Mississip- 
 pi 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 
 an put to sea, as from a hostile port? And yet, my colleague here, in the face of 
 these and other notorious facts, as 1 have heard others equally reckless elsewhere, 
 dares, for the sake of putting his own Government in the wrong, to aver that not 
 th e traitor rebels but nur own authorities inaugurated civil war; fixing its com- 
 mencement 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 New York, [Mr. Fernando Wood.] Whenever and however 
 hostilities commenced, where then was he, and what was his relation to the great 
 rebellious movement by which was sought to be destroyed the integrity and unit 
 of his country? 
 
 A^ hen our difficulties with the South were ripening into war, when hostilities 
 were actually commenced, when it was not known how fjir disaffection might ex- 
 tend througliout the several States of this Union, there was a mayor of New York 
 who proposed that that city should secede from the Government of the United 
 States ,and set up for itself as a "Free City," on the pattern of independent political 
 communities of tliat sort known on the European continent. 
 
 Mr. FERNANDO WOOD. Mr. Speaker 
 
 The SPEAKER pro ternpore. Does the gentleman from Ohio yield to the gentle- 
 man from New York? 
 
 Ml. SCHENCK. I cannot be interrupted, sir, but will continue as the gentleman 
 insisted on doing when others sought to interrupt him. 
 
 Not that alone, sir; the same mayor of New York, after rebellion was already 
 rampaut, when boxe.-* 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 seeking to overthrow the 
 Government aud the countrj' — 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. FERNANDO WOOD. Mr. Speaker 
 
 Mr. SCHENCK. Yes, I know that that has been denied here, a short time ago, 
 by that gentleman on tliis floor, and without hearing him now, I give him the ben- 
 efit of that denial. But he shall also have the benefit of the positive proof, pro- 
 duced 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 New York. As that gentleman has entertained the HoKse by the 
 reading of some precious extracts, I propose also to send Bomelhing to the Clerk's 
 desk to be read. It is an extract tvom a paper recently published in bis own city. 
 
The CLERK read, as follo-ws: 
 
 "Mr. Fkejiando Wood has the effrontery to deny, In the House, that while mayor of Hew 
 Fork he sent a tiispatch to Georgia regretting that arms intended for that State had beea 
 stopped in New York. He averred that his dispatch related to merchandise only. Here are 
 the aispatches: 
 
 " MiLLEDOicvrLLE, January 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 important to us and to N«w "S ork, 
 Answer at once. E. TOOMBS . 
 
 " To this the mayor returned the following answer : 
 "Hon. Robert Toombr, Milledgeville, Georgia: 
 
 " In reply to your dispatch I regret to say that arms Intended for and consigned to the State 
 of Georgia have been seized by the police of this State, but that the, city of New York sbo uld 
 In no way be made responsible for the outrage. 
 
 "As mayor, I have uo authority over the police. If I had the power I should summarily 
 punish the authors of this illegal and unjusliflable seizure of private property. 
 
 "FERNANDO WOOD. 
 
 " Now what excuse will Mr. Wood have to offer to the House" 
 
 Mr. SCHENCK. That will do. I will ask the question mj-self; 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 solemnly declared her secession from the Union, and 
 3et herself up by that solemn act in open rebellion. 
 
 It was an "outrage" not to send arms; and he is no war Democrat 1 Sir, he is & 
 war Democrat, but what kind of a war Democrat? His "war Democracy" consists 
 in an indorsement of a war by his fellow-rioters, led forward under the influence 
 of his teachings in New York, who foully and cruelly murdered, among others, 
 even one of the officers of your noble Army, while wearing the national uniform! 
 
 Oh, no; probably he slunk away in the midst of that riot. Probably he was not 
 seen in the street. Probably he held no weapon in his hand and applied no torch 
 to any dwelling. But who does not know that it was the uniform teachings of him 
 and his schoolthat roused that angry, that unreflecting, that ignorant populace into 
 deeds of violence, of ruin, of rapine, of murder, in which it indulged ? 
 
 And now he stands here talking smoothly about peace, and about being no war 
 Democrat I 
 
 But, sir, I have another reminiscence for him. There was a time when he was a 
 war Democrat — aye, and a war Democrat 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 New 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 Jnion 
 square. And there he pledged himself to assembled thousands that he was for the 
 war, and was for the Union. I apprehend he found it convenient to have it under- 
 "itood 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 occasion — you may call it honor or dishonor, as you 
 will — from the same stand with him to those assembled thousands. I had no ao- 
 quaintance with him, but I stood near him while he was thus delivering himself and 
 making those loyal pledges and avowals. 
 
 I say, therefore, that I do not know what kind of a war Democrat he may be 
 hereafter; whether he will be against his own people and the Governmert of the 
 United States, as he is row; 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 offer 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 the feet of insurgents in arms and cries implor- 
 ingly to them, " Do with us as you will, tear from the flag of our glorious Union half 
 its gleaming stripes, blot out as many of those stars as you can reach and extinguish ; 
 only join us again that you may help us to restore the Democratic party, s 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 
 bjfore." [Laughter.J 
 
 Mr. Speaker, the memHe? *'rom New York has been occupying the time of the 
 a otiB6with the reailcg great mmber of extracts to show the position of certain 
 
men prior to this war, or about the time of its commencement. Some of these ex- 
 tracts 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 de- 
 clarations 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 differ- 
 ently 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 with bayonets. The arguments now to be 
 used and the only arguments to be used are the incisive, cutting reasonings of the 
 sword, the sharp-pointed remark of the bayonet, the knock down conclusion of the 
 bursting bombshell. It is in the midst of such fierce and practical debate as this 
 that the gentleman from New York comes forward and proposes to yield to the ar- 
 rogant and insolent demands of parricide rebels, bearing in his hajids as precedents 
 his collection of extracts, genuine or otherwise, culled from what may have been 
 written in other times and under other circumstances. If he 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 under- 
 stand the true character of our people, or the power of self-preservation which rests 
 in our Government. What parallel is there between such hesitation then, and the 
 concessions which would be made by this man here now upon this fJoor, and almost 
 in the very presence of the public enemy ? 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I can understand how, in the Revolution, when these States, then 
 colonies, broke awaj? from the mother country, 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 Govern- 
 ment, 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 trium])h before him can to-day doubt or distrust or bargain away his country's 
 nationality, 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 1864. [Applause.] 
 
 Mr. Speaker, we are, as I have stated, in the presence of the enemy. Eveiy man 
 in this Union is to-day, in one sense, a citizen soldier. Our people are either in the 
 Jines of the Union army in front, facing and fighting the foe, oi' they are in the rear, 
 striving by every means possible to strengthen and advance the common cause. 
 
 I repeat, every man is a citizen soldier ; and we who are here no less so than 
 others. Now, when a soldier is marching with the army toward the enemy, or 
 holding his place in line of battle ready to meet the onset or to make the charge, 
 if that soldier — and I beg pardon of our honest, brav.e fellows in the field for even 
 making such a supposition — if that soldier, instead of attending to his stern and grim 
 purpose, to the consideration 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, " Our cause 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 sucli 
 a time 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 rebellion, who insists that the rebellion, in his 
 
6 
 
 view, is altogether right and justifiable, who would compromise, who would tem- 
 porize, who would have his Government debased to the condition of begging peace 
 from armed and insolent insurgent?, — is he less deserving of execration and punish- 
 ment? Though we may not execute such a man on the appropriate gallows 
 elected 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 
 as much strength — having just I'isen 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 debate upon this floor. 
 
 The first objection taken to this resolution is that its passage would be a danger- 
 ous interference with the liberty of speech. You must not abridge the freedoiu of 
 debate in these Halls, devoted to the discuseion of great interests upon the right 
 adjustment of which the future prosperity of our country depends. 
 
 And, sir, there is something plausible in that objection. Freedom of speech in a free 
 Government is indeed important; and the full privilege of fearless and unrestrained 
 debate is nowhere more important than in these Halls of legislation, where we are 
 meeting and settling the gravest and deepest questions. This principle was not 
 overlooked, we are to believe, by the fathers who framed our national Constitution. 
 Yet the gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. Mallort,] who quoted the Constitution 
 yesterday on this point, most strangely omitted a material and significant portion 
 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 Representative of the people, and that, too, in violation of our 
 organic law, which in very terms provides that " no member shall be questioned 
 for any speech or debate in either House." Surprised at such assertion, I took oc- 
 casion then to remind him that that was by no means all the Constitution says upon 
 that subject. In treating of the powers of Congress, it provides, among other 
 things, that vSeriators and Representatives 
 
 ' ' Shall in all cases, except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from ar- 
 rest 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 ques- 
 tioned in any other place.'''' 
 
 Ah, sir, "in any other place" While the framers of this sacred instrument 
 were taking care jealously to protect and hedge around this freedom of debate, so 
 that the Representatives of the people might be 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 character. The 
 House was to take care that there shoulc^ be nothing said or done here, here above 
 all other places, which should be prejudicial to good order or inimical to the liber- 
 ties of this country ; nothing which might tend to give up or abandon or break 
 down the very Government itself. I do not wonder that gentleman engaged in 
 the desperate cause of defending treasonable utterances on this floor should be un- 
 willing 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 wise 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 certain 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 im- 
 proper to be done, upon this floor, you must try him only as if by the strict forms 
 and rules of law in a judicial court. I can conceive many instances in which 
 off^ense might be given here, requiring the intervention of the House and calling for 
 its severest punishment, where there has been nothing even savoring of treason. 
 A member might make an indecent exposure of his person ; he might use language 
 so 'profane and obscene and ofl"ensive 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 tak- 
 ing the ground that treason has been committed. And when I say that the language 
 used was treasonable, I mean to be understood in this qualified sense, that while 
 there may not have been a crime aommitted for which he might be held to account 
 
before the other tribunals of the country, yet such words being uttered here and 
 at this particular time, flagrante bello, with the rebel force at our very doors, they 
 become in their tendency and effect encouragement to the rebellion and an instiga- 
 tion to the enemies of the nation to go on in their attempts to overthrow it. 
 
 Now, sir, I was not 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, official, and authorized report of that speech; and to satisfy me that he de- 
 serves the heavj' punishment proposed, I do not need to look any further than to 
 passages in it which strike my eye now as I hold it hei'e in my hand. I will read : 
 
 "Mr. Chairman, I have defmed it proper thus to advert to the charges of encouragement to 
 the confederates so repeale-dly made upon this floor, and I again recur to tlie coTisideration of 
 the Union. Can the Union be restored by war? I answermosi unhesitatingly and deliberately. 
 No, never, "■ war is finul, etefnal reparations " 
 
 Again, in s/jeaking of the remarks of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. 
 Stevens,] and in trying to ally those opinions to his — with what want of success 
 the gentleman from Pennsylvania has most triumphantly shown — he says : 
 
 " The confederates States are out of the Union, occupying the position of an independent 
 Power de fa^;to, have been acknowledged as a belligerent both by foreign nations and our 
 own Government, maintained their declaration of independence for three years by force of arms, 
 and that the war has cut asunder all the ligaments and abrogated all the obligations that bound 
 them under the Cconstitution." 
 
 Here, sir, I propose to make one single remark m reference to my own view of 
 this subject — of the rights of these seceding States and of the people of those 
 States. I belong to that class of theorists — for we all have theories on these sub- 
 jects — who believe that the rebels by their insurrection and making war on their 
 Government have forfeited, if we choose to enforce that forfeiture, all their rights 
 as citizens of this country, 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 have the right, because they are not foreigners and have 
 not rid themselves of their obligations under the Constitution, to treat tliem as 
 traitors under the law. In other words — to use. a homely figure — we pursue them 
 with a double-barreled gun. We may shoot them as belligerents, or we maj- shoot 
 them as traitors. They are subjects, on the one hand, for the sword, because they 
 have themselves taken the sword and brought the curse thus upon themselves ; and 
 they are, on the other hand, the subjects also of hemp, to be raised ta the elevation 
 which only properly belongs to such traitors. 
 
 But my colleag-ue, [Mr. Long,] in these remarkable utterances 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 us 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 hahd of fellowship. He has freed himself from every obligation. He 
 owes no duty to the law. He owes nothing to the Constitution. There is no possi- 
 bility of pursuing him and bringing him to punishment withoutdoing hima wrong. 
 And this is the doctrine preached here in an American Congress! And we are ex- 
 pected not to say that the man who thus talks in his place here is unfit to hold a 
 seat in this House 1 
 
 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 difHcult to understand how a man, intelligent and able as this 
 'speech proves its author to be, can be so dangerou.sly wrong, and yet with innocent 
 purpose". This speech he himself admits was not made on tlie spur of the moment, 
 but after long weeks of carefnl preparation, of pruning and filing; and it will not 
 do to let him off on the supposition 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 New York says we are the disunionists. If so, sir, we have a 
 singular way of showing it. We the disunionists on this side of the House ; we, 
 who u[)hold 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 
 unholy 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 almost persuaded them- 
 selves, by frequejit repetition, that they are in favor of the Union, while at the 
 nojcat- rirhw V>v their speeches, their rotes, and their actions, tiiey refuse to do any- 
 
4 8 
 
 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 main- 
 taining 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 rebellion; we believe that it 
 can only be effectually 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 arbitrary arrests, you suppress freedom of speech. 
 When the robber is in your house, you will not sit down with us and count the cost, 
 to see how m\ich it will take to turn hira out. When the murderer 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 precedent for those who take these extraordinary positions 
 which I beg to commend to gentlemen upon the other side; and I know there a; e a 
 good many of them distinguished for their knowledge and familiarity with the Eng- 
 lish 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 extin- 
 guishing the flames which were destroying the queen's palace, they will compre- 
 hend the reasonableness of their objections. It was a good thing to stop the con- 
 flagration, but very bad to make the most effectual appliance for doing it. [Great 
 laughter.] 
 
 So there are war Democrats who cry ' "^iwn with the rebellion," while they de- 
 nounce every vigorous means for puttit-g' . down. 
 
 But I have been drawn away fi-om asking your attention to further most objec- 
 tionable portions of the speech on which my colleague is arraigned. I read again : 
 
 " As will be judged, perhaps, by the tenor of these remarks, I am reluctantly and despondingly 
 forced to the coaclusion that the Union is lost, never to be restored." 
 
 Again he says: 
 
 " "What has been predicted by our wisest and most eminent statesmen has come to pass ; in 
 grasping at the shadow we have lost the substance; in striving to retain the casket of liberty in 
 which our jewels were conflned, we have lost those precious muniments of freedom. Our Govern- 
 ment, as all know, is not anything resembling what it was three years ago ; there is not one single 
 vestige of the Constitution remaining; every clause and every letter of it has been violated, and I 
 have no idea myself that it will ever again be respected." 
 
 And again: 
 
 " Mr. Chairman, I take little or no interest in the discussion of the question which many of my 
 political friends would make an issue, as to how this war shall shall be prosecuted, its manner and 
 objects. I regard that as worse than trifling with the jrreat question. I do n^t believe there can 
 be any prosecution of the war against a sovereign State under the constitution, and I do not believe 
 that a war 80 carried on can be prosecuted so as to render it proper, justifiable, or expedient." 
 
 Then, according to this, we are engaged in a war which is improper, unjustifiable, 
 inexpedient; and which cannot be prosecuted without resulting in its consequences 
 in the destruction of our Constitution and the overthrow of all free government in 
 the land. Must these and other like expressions, pervading the whole of this 
 elaborate argument in favor of secession and against preserving the integrity of our 
 nation, go unrebuked ? I trust not ; and I shall greatly have mistaken the patrio- 
 tism 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 countrj''9 trials, that I believe strong remedies for desperate diseases may 
 properly be resorted to. I admit that constitutional power may sometimes have 
 been strained, but I am of opinion that it has not been execeeded. And when gen- 
 tlemen speak with such Jioly horror of the possibility of "overleaping the Consti- 
 tution in order to save the country," I confess that I do not see anything so terrible 
 in tliat figure. What is the Constitution ? The form and framework of our system, 
 under and through which the People may carry on their Governiq^nt. It is, after 
 all, the form only, and not the life itself Mark this difi'erence. The builders of 
 this our framework have provided in itself the mode of its own amendment and re- 
 novation ; but no such change was ever contemplated for the Nation. ■ The Consti- 
 tution 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 making war, or eucouraging 
 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 powers of that 
 Constitution to the utmost that the Nation itself may live. 
 
 Printed by L. Towers, for tlie Union OongreRsional Committee. 
 
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