Government can consistently follow, and the only one which seems to offer a plain path out of the maze of conflicting legal and constitutional points in which so many of our public men seem to have become entangled. The States, by seceding, have committed suicide. The slaves therein are de facto free. Stick to that, and you will come out all right."

Hon. Charles A. Dana, the accomplished journalist, afterwards Assistant Secretary of War, wrote:

"I fully appreciate the difficulty of settling the South after it is conquered. I don't see how your plan can be avoided; bon gré, mal gré, it is what we all must come to."

Park Benjamin, writer and poet, who had not formerly sympathized with Mr. Sumner politically, wrote from New York :

"Your Territorial plan is the only right and just one, let the short-sighted geese hiss at it as they may."

William Herries, journalist, wrote from New York :-
:-

"It was my pleasure to-night to be present at the meeting of the German Republican Central Committee, and it was truly refreshing to witness the enthusiasm manifested in behalf of those lofty sentiments embraced in your Rebel Territory Bill. A Memorial is now in course of preparation for you on the subject."

Hon. J. Y. Smith, of the Wisconsin Argus, wrote from Madison:

"Early in the Rebellion I took the same view of the effect of Secession upon the Rebel States as is set forth in your Resolutions, suggested it to our Wisconsin Senators, and wrote several articles in support of it, but could find very few public journals or public men to agree with me. When your resolutions on that subject appeared, I hailed them with joy, and have been exerting the little influence I have to instil the principle into the public mind. It is the true theory, and I wonder why any friend of the country can object to it. By their rebellion they have tumbled Slavery right into our bag, and if we shake it out, our life will go for its life."

Thomas Garrett, a Quaker Abolitionist, wrote from Wilmington, Delaware:

"I yesterday read the resolutions thou offeredst on the 11th of this month, and think the view thou hast taken is correct: that any vote of secession, or other act by which a State may undertake to put an end to the supremacy of the Constitution within its territory, is inoperative and void against the Constitution, and, when sustained by force, is practical abdication by the State of all rights under the Constitution; and every such State ought to be expunged and revert back into a Territory, and begin anew. I thought, six months since, that ere this Slavery would have been abolished by the War Power in all the seceded States, but at present I have very little hope VOL. VIII. - 12

of it. It seems to me incredible that the President and Cabinet should have so much more sympathy for the Rebels than they have for the loyal North."

W. G. Snethen, lawyer, earnest against Slavery, wrote from Balti

more:

"Your admirable resolutions respecting the status of the Rebel region, in which the Rebellion has killed Slavery, did my heart good, especially as indicating an Administration policy. I hope and pray that this doctrine speaks the mind of Lincoln, and that he will not flinch from its execution with the whole power of the Government. . . . . Oh that Congress may adopt your set just as they came from your mighty pen, and then follow them up by legislation to give them active life!"

Edward P. Brownson communicated the opinion of his father, Orestes A. Brownson, in a letter from Elizabeth, New Jersey.

"I suppose my father has long since told you of his delight, when you introduced your Resolutions into the Senate. The joy with which he read them, and the attention he has given them, you will find very clearly expressed in the deep and careful study he has given the subject, evident in his article on State Rebellion, State Suicide; and he would much rather see them pass than win a victory in the field."

Mrs. Maria Weston Chapman, the devoted Abolitionist, and among the earliest in the warfare, wrote from Boston :

"Thanks a thousand-fold for the eleventh volume Pacific Railroad Survey. Your Resolutions are the great Pacific Road to Freedom, -made possible by the War Power though they be. I thank you a million-fold. To say so is no exaggeration, since all done in this behalf is done for all men and all time; and from the hour that Garrison struck the first blow, I have ever felt that the highest numbers were needed fitly to express human gratitude for services rendered to human nature.'

:

Jabez C. Woodman, an able lawyer, wrote from Portland, Maine :"You are not without some judicial authority. As much as ten months ago I heard Judge Ware 1 express the opinion that the Union troops would prevail. He then said he was in favor of coercion,- that he would subjugate the Rebel States, and, taking them at their word, he would not acknowledge them at once as States, but would govern them as conquered provinces, till they were fit to govern themselves."

Elizur Wright, the early and constant Abolitionist, wrote from Boston:

1 For a long time the able and learned Judge of the District Court of the United States in Maine.

"Your Resolutions are the very thing. Had they been passed at the extra session, the war would have been over before now. They, or something to the same effect, must be passed before spring opens, or we are lost. Victo ries, without this law of the conquest, cannot save us. Quite the reverse. I beg you to press the resolutions with any amount of animosity or violence, and to know that all that is alive at the North will sustain you.

"There are thousands ready to see the present Government blotted out in blood and chaos rather than see the old curse reinstated. On us, not on our children! There has been fooling enough. Heaven bless you!"

Rev. George C. Beckwith, Secretary of the American Peace Society, wrote from Boston:

"I had some difficulty for a time about your Territorial views; but I am coming fully to the conclusion that we must deal with all rebellion in some such way, before the South can be brought to any terms. We must have and keep them all in our grasp, until they prove themselves, by their good behavior, fit to come again into the Union."

Charles Husband, an intelligent citizen, whose correspondence was always valuable, wrote from Taunton, Massachusetts :

"I have to thank you for a copy of your Resolutions, and perhaps you will not deem me intrusive, if I wish you a hearty God-speed in the work you have undertaken, —a work the successful accomplishment of which is large enough to fill the measure of the highest ambition, -a work which will redeem the nation from its low estate, which asserts the nation's sovereignty and self-existence, instead of 'borrowing leave to be,' which demands for the nation the paramount allegiance of every inhabitant of its territory, and sweeps away every institution which interposes itself between the nation and that allegiance, - which calls the Government from being the minister of oppression and the mere dispenser of patronage, to take upon itself the high purposes and duties for which 'governments are instituted among men,' which transmutes four millions of chattels into men.

"Allow me to suggest (although it has not, probably, escaped your notice), that the constitutional requirement, that every legislative, executive, and judicial officer in the States shall be sworn to the support of the Constitution of the United States, leaves the whole of the Rebel territory without a civil officer whom the Government can recognize, as every such pretended officer is just as much a usurper in the eye of the Constitution as Jefferson Davis himself."

Henry Hoyt, publisher and bookseller, wrote from Boston: :"I cannot sleep another night till I have thanked you from the bottom of my heart for your bill resolving Rebeldom into Territorial relations again. Of all measures ever introduced into Congress, nothing so completely meets the case of the present exigency of our country's history, and nothing but this can make the confederacy of the whole land stand in

safety a single year. We may continue to win battles, but, so long as the ruins of Slavery exist in the body politic, we shall stand on a volcano."

But the most important commentary on the Resolutions is found in the measures of Reconstruction subsequently adopted, all of which stand on the power of Congress over the Rebel States, which they positively assert, including especially the power and duty to guaranty a republican form of government.

The Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, drawn up by its Chairman, Mr. Fessenden, asserted that the Rebel States "having voluntarily renounced the right to representation, and disqualified themselves by crime from participating in the Government, the burden now rests upon them, before claiming to be reinstated in their former condition, to show that they are qualified to resume Federal relations." It then laid down the rule:

"Having, by this treasonable withdrawal from Congress, and by flagrant rebellion and war, forfeited all civil and political rights and privileges under the Federal Constitution, they can only be restored thereto by the permission and authority of that constitutional power against which they rebelled, and by which they were subdued." 1

Here was the power of Congress asserted, — but very tardily, and after original denial.

A calm observer has recently recorded his regret that the Resolutions were not adopted at once, and consistently acted upon. After saying that "the mover was overwhelmed with a tornado of denunciation and abuse," and that the opposition "rendered any satisfactory reconstruction as nearly impracticable as can well be imagined," the writer proceeds:

"Time has fully vindicated the wisdom of Mr. Sumner's course, and many of the Senators against the measure now admit their mistake, while every man who comes here from the South says that their present miserable condition grows out of that great error.

"To the Democratic party the rejection of the Resolutions was a Godsend. It made the continued existence of the Democratic party possible." 2

Such is the first chapter of Reconstruction.

1 Senate Reports, 39th Cong. 1st Sess., No. 112, June 8, 1866, pp. 13, 14.

? Hon. Amasa Walker, in the Chicago Advance, February 2, 1871.

TREASURY NOTES A LEGAL TENDER.

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, ON THE CLAUSE MAKING TREASURY NOTES
A LEGAL TENDER, FEBRUARY 13, 1862.

FEBRUARY 13th, the Senate having under consideration a bill from the House of Representatives to authorize the issue of United States notes, and for the redemption or funding thereof, and for funding the floating debt of the United States, Mr. Collamer, of Vermont, moved to strike out the following words:

"And such notes herein authorized, and the notes authorized by the Act of July 17, 1861, shall be receivable in payment of all public dues and demands of every description, and of all claims and demands against the United States of every kind whatsoever, except for interest upon bonds and notes, which shall be paid in coin, and shall also be lawful money and a legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private, within the United States, except interest as aforesaid."

Mr. Collamer stated that some desired him to try the sense of the Senate on the question of private debts, but he preferred the above amendment, "that these notes shall not be tenderable upon any debts due by the Government or by individuals." On this proposition he had already made an elaborate speech.

Mr. Fessenden also spoke elaborately upon the whole bill; but he characterized the legal tender clause as "the main question." Here he said:

"The question, then, is, Does the necessity exist? . . . . If the necessity exists, I have no hesitation upon the subject, and shall have none. If there is nothing left for us to do but that, and that will effect the object, I am perfectly willing to do that."

Mr. Sumner spoke last in the debate, and at least one Senator acknowledged that on the question of constitutional power he had been changed by this speech. The vote was then taken on the amendment, and resulted, yeas 17, nays 22.

So the motion to strike out the legal tender clause was rejected.