John Alexander Logan

“ I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the Negroes should cease helping the Enemy, to that extent it weakened the Enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought whatever Negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for White soldiers to do in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But Negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do anything for us if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us they must be prompted by the strongest motives, even the promise of Freedom. ”

“ Speaker, in the early part of this Secession movement, there was a Resolution offered, pledging men and money to carry on the War. My principles were then, and are now, against the War. I stood, solitary and alone, in voting against that Resolution, and whenever a similar proposition is brought here it will meet with my opposition. Not one dollar, nor one man, I swear, by the Eternal, will I vote for this infernal, this stupendous folly, more stupendous than ever disgraced any civilized People on the face of God's Earth. If that be Treason, make the most of it! ”

“ But now, when hundreds of thousands of brave souls have gone up to God under the shadow of the Flag, and when thousands more, maimed and shattered in the Contest, are sadly awaiting the deliverance of death; now, when three years of terrific warfare have raged over us, when our Armies have pushed the Rebellion back over mountains and rivers and crowded it back into narrow limits, until a wall of fire girds it; now, when the uplifted hand of a majestic People is about to let fall the lightning of its conquering power upon the Rebellion ”

“ I think the Constitution invests the Commander-in-Chief with the Law of War in Time of War. The most that can be said, if so much, is, that Slaves are property. Is there, has there ever been, any question that, by the Law of War, property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed? And is it not needed whenever it helps us and hurts the Enemy? Armies, the World over, destroy enemies' property when they cannot use it; and even destroy their own to keep it from the Enemy. ”

“ After President Lincoln had issued his Proclamation of Emancipation, the friends of Freedom clearly perceived—and none of them more clearly than himself that until the incorporation of that great Act into the Constitution of the United States itself, there could be no real assurance of safety to the liberties of the emancipated; that unless this were done there would be left, even after the suppression of the Rebellion, a living spark of dissension which might at any time again be fanned into the flames of Civil War. ”

“ It is the savage spirit of this barbarous Institution which starves the Union prisoners at Richmond, which assassinates them at Fort Pillow, which murders the wounded on the field of battle, and which fills up the catalogue of wrong and outrage which mark the conduct of the Rebels during all this War.
"In view of all the long catalogue of wrongs which Slavery has inflicted upon the Country, I demand to-day, of the Congress of the United States, the death of African Slavery. We can have no permanent Peace, while Slavery lives. ”

“ I freely acknowledge myself to be the servant of the People, according to the bond of service, the United States Constitution; and that, as such, I am responsible to them.
But, to be plain. You are dissatisfied with me about the Negro. Quite likely there is a difference of opinion between you and myself upon that subject. I certainly wish that all men could be Free, while you, I suppose, do not. Yet I have neither adopted nor proposed any measure which is not consistent with even your view, provided that you are for the Union. I suggested compensated Emancipation ”

“ Had the Abolitionists, instead of the Slaveholders, revolted, and undertaken to upset the Government and dissolve the Union, nine-tenths of these rioters would have eagerly volunteered to put them down. It is the fear, stimulated by the recent and glorious triumphs of the Union Arms, that Slavery and the Rebellion must suffer, which is at the bottom of all this arson, devastation, robbery, and murder. ”

“ It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that Cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of Freedom; and that Government of the People, by the People, and for the People, shall not perish front the Earth. ”

“ The scheme of making greenbacks a legal tender, which enabled the debtor to cheat his creditor, thereby playing the old game of kingcraft, to debase the currency in order to aid the designs of despotism, may float us for a while amidst the fluctuations and bubbles of the day; but as no one possesses the power to repeal the Law of the Almighty, which decrees (and as our Constitution has established) that gold and silver shall be the standard of value in the World, so they will ever thus remain, notwithstanding the legislation of Congress. ”

“ As if this were not sufficient to conjure dreadful imaginings, he added: "if one set of men are drafted this year to serve twelve months, and they have to go because the power of the Government makes them go, whether they can go well or not, then at the end of the year their neighbors should be subjected to the same Horror, and let this dreadful demand upon the service, upon the blood, and upon the life of the People be distributed upon all." ”

“ This new-born heresy 'Military Necessity,' as President Lincoln claims, and exercises it, is the sum of all political and Military villianies * * * and it is no less absurd than it is villianous. * * * The man has never spoken or lived who can prove by any provision of the Constitution, or by any principle, or by any argument to be deduced logically and fairly from it, that he has any such power as this vast, gigantic, all-conquering and all-crushing power of Military Necessity which he has the audacity to claim. ”

“ I believe the utterance of to-day is the uplifted banner of revolt. I ask you to mark the signal that blazes here, and see if there will not soon appear the answering signals of Traitors all over the Land. * * * If these men do mean to light the torch of War in all our homes; if they have resolved to begin the fearful work which will redden our streets, and this Capitol, with blood, the American People should know it at once, and prepare to meet it. ”

“ At the ballot-box, whether at home or in the camp, they are Union men, and vote as they fight, and hold little in common with the political leaders of the Democratic Party in or out of this Hall—the Seymours, the Woods, the Vallandighams, the Woodwards, and their indorsers, who hold and control the Democratic Party here, and taint it with Treason, till it is a stench in the nostrils of all patriotic men. ”

“ I want the President of the United States, I want his Secretary of War, I want some of his high officers in Military command to bring a civilian to a Military execution, and me to have the proud privilege of prosecuting them for murder. ”

“ The strength of the Rebellion is its Military, its Army. That Army dominates all the Country, and all the people, within its range. Any offer of terms made by any man or men within that range, in opposition to that Army, is simply nothing for the present: because such man or men have no power whatever to enforce their side of a Compromise, if one were made with them.
To illustrate: Suppose refugees from the South, and Peace men of the North, get together in Convention, and frame and proclaim a Compromise embracing a restoration of the Union. ”

“ Cox said: "I will say this, that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES CONCEIVABLE BY THE HUMAN MIND WOULD I EVER VIOLATE THAT CONSTITUTION FOR ANY PURPOSE!"
This sentiment was loudly applauded, and received with cries of "THAT IS IT!" "THAT'S IT!" by the Democratic side of the House, apparently in utter contempt for the express and emphatic declaration of Jefferson that: "A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of Necessity, of Self-preservation, of SAVING OUR COUNTRY WHEN IN DANGER, are of higher obligation. ”

“ During the great debate, which now opened in the Senate, upon the Judiciary Committee's substitute resolution for the Amendment of the Constitution, so as forever to prohibit Slavery within the United States, and to empower Congress to pass such laws as would make that prohibition effective—participated in by Messrs. Trumbull, Wilson, Saulsbury, Davis, Harlan, Powell, Sherman, Clark, Hale, Hendricks, Henderson, Sumner, McDougall and others—the whole history of Slavery was enquired into and laid bare. ”

“ I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now at the end of three years' struggle, the Nation's condition is not what either Party, or any man, devised or expected. God alone can claim it. ”

“ That season of victory for the Union arms, coming, as it did, upon a season of depression and doubtfulness, was doubly grateful to the loyal heart of the Nation. Daylight seemed to be breaking at last. Gettysburg had hurled back the Southern invader from our soil; and Vicksburg, with the immediately resulting surrender of Port Hudson, had opened the Mississippi river from Cairo to the Gulf, and split the Confederacy in twain. ”

“ By General Law, life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise Unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming Indispensable to the Constitution through the preservation of the Nation. ”

“ Then he went on, in the spirit of prophecy, to declare that: "No purely agricultural people, fighting for the protection of their own Domestic Institutions upon their own soil, have ever yet been conquered. I say further, that no revolted people have ever been subdued after they have been able to maintain an Independent government for three years." And then, warming up to an imperative mood, he made this explicit announcement: "We are at War. * * * Whether it be a Civil War, Rebellion, Revolution, or Foreign War, it matters little. ”

“ After referring to the fact that the leaders of the Rebellion had from the start relied confidently upon assistance from the Northern Democracy, he proceeded:
"The Peace Democracy, and mere Party-hacks in the North, are fulfilling their masters' expectations industriously, unceasingly, and as far as in them lies. Not even the shouts for victory, in these Halls, can divert their Southern allies here. A sullen gloom at the defeat and discomfiture of their Southern brethren settles down on their disastrous countenances, from which no ray of joy can be reflected. ”

“ But nowhere did He give dominion of Man over Man. Our title extends back to the foundation of the World. That constitutes property. There is where we get our title. There is where we get our 'vested rights' to property."
Touching the ethics of Slavery, Mr. Arnold's speech on the same occasion was also able, and in parts eloquent, as where he said: 'Slavery is to-day an open enemy striking at the heart of the Republic. It is the soul and body, the spirit and motive of the Rebellion. It is Slavery which marshals yonder Rebel hosts, which confront the patriot Armies of Grant and Sherman. ”

“ Arnold—recalling a speech of Owen Lovejoy's at Chicago, and a passage in it, descriptive of the martyrdom,—said to the House, on this sad occasion: "I remember that, after describing the scene of that death, in words—which stirred every heart, he said he went a pilgrim to his brother's grave, and, kneeling upon the sod beneath which sleeps that brother, he swore, by the everlasting God, eternal hostility to African Slavery." And, continued Arnold, "Well and nobly has he kept that oath." ”