Rebellion Losses Bill

“ Congress has undertaken to provide for the military government of the Rebel States, and has made certain requirements with regard to Reconstruction, and there it stops. It has presented no complete system, and it has provided no machinery. From this failure our friends at the South are at this moment in the greatest anxiety. They are suffering. Former Rebels, or persons representing the Rebellion, are moving under our [Pg 306] bill to take a leading part. ”

“ The cost of maintaining a land army of even a hundred thousand men, and a naval force to correspond, would have been, in simple money value, only a tithe of what the rebellion has cost the nation, to say nothing of the valuable lives that have been sacrificed for the losses on the rebel side, as well as those on the side of the government, are equally to be counted. ”

“ It is idle to suppose that recent rebels, restored to privileges of citizenship, will vote cordially for the national debt incurred in the suppression of their rebellion, or that they will willingly tax themselves for interest on the enormous outlays by which their darling Slavery has been overthrown. The evidence shows them already set against any such contribution. As time advances, and their power is assured, in conjunction with Northern sympathizers, they will openly oppose it; or, if they consent to recognize it, they will impose the condition that the Rebel debt shall be recognized also. ”

“ If our resources were infinite, we might tender this large sum by way of experiment; but with a treasury drained to the bottom, and a debt accumulating in fabulous proportions, I do not understand how we can vote millions, which, in the first place, will be of little or no service in the suppression of the Rebellion, and, in the second place, will be simply a largess in no way essential to the subversion of Slavery.
Whatever is given for Immediate Emancipation is given for the national defence, and for the safety and honor of the Republic. It will be a blow at the Rebellion. ”

“ And the Executive will in due time recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the Rebellion shall (upon the restoration of the Constitutional relation between the United States and their respective States and people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of Slaves. ”

“ Now, setting aside the doctrine, subversive even of all traitors' honour, and of all security under any government, that men may first half destroy a country by rebellion, and afterwards make up the other half of its destruction by claiming indemnity for incidental losses; setting aside this question, and viewing the matter in the abstract light, that all claims for injuries should be paid, we should like to know who is to pay the creditors of the poor widows of the soldiers and the loyalists whose blood stained the snows of Canada in suppressing Dr Wolfred Nelson's rebellion? ”

“ The most jarring elements of nature, fire and water themselves, are not more incompatible than such a mixture of civil liberty and military execution. Will the militia march from one state into another, in order to collect the arrears of taxes from the delinquent members of the republic? Will they maintain an army for this purpose? Will not the citizens of the invaded state assist one another, till they rise as one man and shake off the Union altogether? Rebellion is the only case in which the military force of the state can be properly exerted against its citizens. ”

“ He feared Rebellion would grow a national malady! Danger is even to be apprehended from the method of putting this Bill in execution: should the Commissioners not act, it is a needless, an useless Bill—if they do, what is to encourage them? power and interest? and into what hands are you going to trust those formidable enemies? ”

“ Its tremendous force came from its being a revolt of States, with the capacity to employ those powers of taxation and conscription which place the persons and property of all residing in political communities at the service of their governments. And now that characteristic which gave strength to the Rebel communities in war is invoked to shield them from Federal regulation in defeat. We are required to substitute technicalities for facts; to consider the Rebellion—what it notoriously was not—a mere revolt of loose aggregations of men owing allegiance to the United States ”

“ And here I deem it a duty to say to the financial portion of our peace party, especially in New York, that our redundant and depreciated currency, with our failure to crush the rebellion, and a consequent dissolution of the Union, would make repudiation inevitable. We are forced, then, by a due regard to our material interests, as well as by the higher obligations of honor and duty, to subdue the revolt and restore the supremacy of the Government in every State. ”

“ Its destruction was indeed the deadliest blow that could be given to the Rebellion which was threatening destruction to the Republic. It was not unfair to say, as was said by many during the crisis, that it was brought to every man's conscience to decide whether he would continue to imperil the fate of the Union by refusing the enfranchise the slave. ”

“ Why, our condition at the end of the War of the Rebellion, when we had a national debt of three thousand millions, and general derangement and demoralization, was an Elysium compared with that of our fathers at the close of the Revolutionary War,--no central power, no constitution, no government, with poverty, agricultural distress, and uncertainty, and the prostration of all business ”

“ To the constitutional conventions, which met in the fall, it was made clear, through the governors, that the President would insist upon three conditions: the formal abolition of slavery, the repudiation of the ordinance of secession, and 77 the repudiation of the Confederate war debt. To Governor Holden he telegraphed: "Every dollar of the debt created to aid the rebellion against the United States should be repudiated finally and forever. ”

“ Fifthly, no man offensively implicated in the Rebellion must represent any State in Congress. Sixthly, no man must be taxed against his will for any debt incurred through rebellion against the United States. ”

“ Congress voted to issue bills ol credit, or paper money, to the amount of three millions of dollars, for the pay of the army, and also took measures for the June, 1775 establishment of provisional Assemblies in the several colonies instead of the royal governments; for acts of Parliament, declaring the colonies in a state of rebellion, and providing for the destruction of the commerce of several sea-port towns, and for the sending of fleets and armies to enforce submission, were regarded by the Americans as virtual acknowledgments of the abdication of all power here. ”

“ Has the Government no authority to bring to punishment the authors of this rebellion after the conflict of arms has ceased? no authority to hold as prisoners, if necessary, all who have been captured with arms in their hands? Can it be that, the moment the rebel armies are dispersed, the military authority ceases, and they are to be turned loose to arm and organize again for another conflict against the Union? ”

“ What does it mean that rebel States, after and by the very fact of the defeat of the rebellion, were at once restored to all their rights, privileges and powers in the Union just as if they had never rebelled? Nobody will pretend that, while the rebel States were actually making war upon the Government of this Republic, they were then entitled to any Constitutional privileges and any exercise of Constitutional powers in that Government. ”

“ The question in this case is, whether the State government as reconstructed after the late rebellion, is absolutely and irretrievably bound by the twelfth section to accept for taxes and other public dues the bills issued by the bank when under the control of the insurgent government during the war. ”

“ In alliance with the Northern Democratic party, the South with these thirty votes might repeal the Civil Rights Bill, the principle of which is embodied in the proposed amendment. It might assume the Rebel debt, which is repudiated in that amendment. It might even repudiate the Federal debt, which is affirmed in that amendment. We are so accustomed to look at the Rebel debt as dead beyond all power of resurrection, as to forget that it amounts, with the valuation of the emancipated slaves, to some four thousand millions of dollars. ”

“ When it is intended that, unless another species of legislation is agreed to, the money of the people, paid for that purpose, shall not be used to maintain their government, the threat is revolution and its execution is treasonable." Then he gave the mortal stab. Of the ninety-three senators and representatives from the eleven disloyal States, he said, eighty-five were soldiers in the armies of the rebellion, and their support of these "revolutionary measures is a fight for empire. ”

“ It demoralizes the finances of a government, which in turn destroys industries and business in general. Many million dollars of war debts accumulate, which is often a very heavy burden upon a people and requires many years to extinguish it. It has been estimated that less than one-third of the amount expended by the United States Government for the purpose of crushing the great rebellion from 1861 to 1865 would have been sufficient to pay for the macadamizing of all the public country roads in the United States. ”

“ We decline to pledge ourselves that the debts incurred in aid of the Rebellion shall not in the future be paid by our States. We decline, in brief, to assent to any of the conditions or provisions of the proposed amendment to the Constitution, and we deny your right to amend it without our consent. ”

“ Because Congress alone, and not the States, is invested with power to use the great means for all wars,-'to raise and support armies,' 'to provide and maintain a navy,' 'to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions,' and 'to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia.' The largest powers of taxation, too, were conferred on Congress at the same time, and in part for this cause, with authority to borrow money on the credit of the Union, and to dispose of the public lands. ”

“ Had the reconstruction measures enacted by Congress, harsh as they were, been imposed upon the Southern people immediately after the War, when the people were stunned by their overwhelming defeat, and when there was still some apprehension of bloody vengeance to be visited upon the leaders of the rebellion—as was the case, for instance, in Hungary in 1849 after the collapse of the great insurrection—those measures would have been accepted as an escape from something worse. ”

“ But if insurgent States recover their former rights and privileges when they submit to superior force, there is no reason why armed rebellion should not be as common as local discontent. We have, on this principle, sacrificed thirty-five hundred millions of dollars and three hundred thousand lives, only to bring the insurgent States into just those "practical relations to the Union" which will enable us to sacrifice thirty-five hundred millions of dollars more, and three hundred thousand more lives, when it suits the passions and caprices of these States to rebel again. ”

“ For those States from which hostile armies had been excluded Congress should legislate or leave the people in the rough hand of military law. The bill designed to discharge that duty was generally acceptable to any one who conceded the propriety of Congressional action, its three prohibitions being probably the only debatable points,—that is the assumption of Confederate debts, the prevention of Confederate officers from voting and the prohibition of involuntary servitude. ”

“ And, finally, by implicitly advocating a policy of concession to armed rebellion, they propose to set aside the fundamental obligation of submission to the Constitutional will of the majority, to remove the only guarantee of order in democratic life, to pay a premium to revolt, and thus to open the flood-gates of civil disorder, and a turbulent and endless war of factions. ”

“ All must be made to feel that the mighty efforts we are making to save our Union are stimulated by a purpose to restore peace and prosperity in every section. If it is true that slavery must be abolished by force; that the South must be held in military subjection; that four millions of negroes must be under the management of authorities at Washington at the public expense; then, indeed, we must endure the waste of our armies, further drains upon our population, and still greater burdens of debt. We must convert our government into a military despotism. ”

“ Among the numerous bills relating to the war, that which became the act to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion, and to seize and confiscate the property of rebels, excited the greatest interest, giving rise to a long debate. ”

“ To add to the gravity of the situation and of the problem of reconstruction, the people of the States lately in rebellion were disfranchised in a mass, regardless of the fact that many of them refused to sanction the rebellion only so far as was necessary to their personal safety. ”