brought into the discussion. I have noticed (he added), that persons who have some constitutional objections or difficulties in regard to having free colored men about them, never have any very severe, difficulties in having slaves about them. Colored men are as sweet as the balm of a thousand flowers' in slavery; but if they are free they have a tremendous odor, and men are anxious to colonize and to banish them." By the last census there were 11,000 colored persons in the District, of whom 3,000 were held as slaves. In meeting them he had not known whether they were slave or free; emancipation would not, probably, materially add to the number of colored persons in the District; nor was it necessary to go to any very great efforts to open a country for their colonization. Mr. Pomeroy doubted whether slavery was legally established in the District, and was opposed to compensating masters; if money was appropriated, the earnings of the slave should be taken in to account. Mr. Willey, of Virginia, opposed the bill," as a border slave-state man." He saw in it "a part of a series of measures, already initiated, all looking to the same ultimate result-the universal abolition of slavery by Congress." He objected to it on the ground of expediency. Legislation of this kind "would hinder and delay, if not imperil, the accomplishment of union and peace, ** it would fire the Southern heart, and on our part, prolong the horrors of war, increase our expenditures, and the burdens of taxation." Wilson, of Massachusetts, followed, tracing the inheritance of slave legislation in the District from "the indecent and vulgar" colonial slave codes of Maryland and Virginia, adopted at the beginning of the century, and vindicating the colored persons of the capital from the aspersions cast upon them. Kennedy, of Maryland, protested against the measure, as ill in itself, and "a forerunner of that other question, which is shortly to be come a leading and important question in the future discussions and organizations of parties, and that is the emancipation. policy of the President. Saulsbury, of Delaware, proposed as an amendment that the persons to be liberated should, at the expense of the government, be removed and distributed, pro rata, according to population, among the northern and western States--a puerile resolution, on which a vote was taken, thirty-one to two-his own and Mr. Kennedy's. Sumner, of Massachusetts, spoke on the 31st of March. He "hailed the measure, and the prospect of its speedy adoption with unspeakable delight. It is the first installment of that great debt which we all owe to an enslaved race, and will be recognized in history as one of the victories of humanity. At home, throughout our own country, it will be welcomed with gratitude; while, abroad, it will quicken the hopes of all who love freedom. Liberal institutions will gain everywhere by the abolition of slavery at the national capital. Nobody can read that slaves were once sold in the markets of Rome, beneath the eyes of the sovereign Pontiff, without confessing the scandal to religion, even in a barbarous age; and nobody can hear that slaves are now sold in the markets of Washington, beneath the eyes of the President, without confessing the scandal to liberal institutions. For the sake of our good name, if not for the sake of justice, let the scandal disappear." Citing the eloquent language of Wm. Pinkney and Lord Brougham, in denial of any natural right of slavery, he confronted the institution as "an aggregation of gross pretensions, all of them utterly inadmissible. They are five in number; first, the pretension of property in man; secondly, the denial of the marriage relation, for slaves are coupled' only, and not married; thirdly, the denial of the paternal relation; fourthly, the denial of instruction; and fifthly, the appropriation of all the labor of the slave, and its fruits, by the master. เ THE DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 517 Such are the five essential elements tutional power, and vote to remove forwhich we find in slavery; and this five- ever the blot of slavery from the nationfold barbarism, so utterly indefensible in al capital. Mr. Francis P. Blair, of Misevery point, is maintained for the single souri, in a speech of philosophical subtilpurpose of compelling labor without ty, defended the policy of the President wages." Mr. Sumner denied the power in the conduct of the war in reference to of Congress not to abolish slavery, but to slavery, especially in regard to the plan maintain it, and drew a curious and in- of colonization, for which a certain proteresting parallel between the palliations vision was made in the bill before the on the present question and those once put House. The war, he said, was not so forward in support of Algerine slavery. much a "slaveholder's rebellion" as had In conclusion, he welcomed the ap- been represented. If it were confined proaching triumph, not unwilling to re- to that body of two hundred and fifty cognize in it the harbinger of other thousand, the negroes themselves could trophies of civilization of a like charac- put it down. But it was the hostility of ter. "At the national capital slavery the people of the South to the race. "It will give way to freedom; but the good was the negro question, and not the work will not stop here. It must pro- slavery question, which made the rebelceed. What God and nature decree re- lion;" and he found the solution of the bellion cannot arrest. And as the whole difficulty in colonization. "We can make wide-spread tyranny begins to tremble, emancipation," said he, "acceptable to then, above the din of battle, sounding the whole mass of non-slaveholders at from the sea, and echoing along the land, the South by coupling it with the policy above even the exultations of victory on of colonization. The very prejudice of well-fought fields, will ascend voices of race which now makes the non-slavegladness and benediction, swelling from holders give their aid to hold the slave in generous hearts wherever civilization bondage, will then induce them to unite bears sway, to commemorate a sacred in a policy which will rid them of the triumph, whose trophies, instead of tat-presence of the negroes. He saw no tered banners, will be ransomed slaves." hardship to the latter in encouraging After several days' further speeches and discussion of amendments, the bill was passed in the Senate, on the 3d of April, by a vote of 29 to 14. It was, a few days after, taken up in the House of Representatives, and, on the 11th, brought to a final hearing. The discussion that day took a wide range over the politics of the day. Nixon, of New Jersey, opened the debate in a speech supporting the policy of the administration. He was in favor of the general principles of the bill. Though gradual emancipation would have been more in harmony with the past modes of dealing with the question, and more in accordance with his own views of public policy; yet, if the House were in favor of immediate emancipation, with just compensation, he was prepared to exercise an express consti their removal to regions where, freed from present disparagements, their prosperity would be assured. "It is in the gorgeous regions of the American tropics," he concluded, "that our freedmen will find their homes, among a people without prejudice against their color, and to whom they will carry and impart new energy and vigor in return for the welcome which will greet them, as the pledge of the future protection and friendship of our great republic. I look with confidence to this movement as the true and only solution of this question—a question by which the life of the nation has been so often put in peril-a movement by which two races of men will be delivered from an unhappy conjunction, fatal to both, and by which two empires are to be established to bless mankind by their beneficent influences through all future time." Mr. Blair was followed by the venerable Crittenden, of Kentucky, who, after his distinguished term in the previous Senate, with true republican simplicity, was now occupying a seat in the House. Without denying the right of Congress to exclusive legislation over the District, he opposed the measure as impolitic in its bearing upon the interests of the country. Of all inauspicious times," he said, "this is the most inauspicious for the measure which we are called upon to adopt. We are not only engaged in this tremendous war, now, I trust, coming to its end, but we are engaged in a war founded upon the apprehension of the people that it is the intention of Congress ultimately to violate the constitutional rights of the different States, in adopting or rejecting slavery, as they please. *** If the bill were entirely unconnected with any question of slavery in the States, it might be of less importance; but, in principle and character it is connected with it, and it will be so considered, at any rate, by those in rebellion. It will be considered as an evidence of the general purpose and intent of Congress. I do not say that you have not the power; but would not that power be, at such a time as this, most unwisely and indiscreetly exercised? *** This measure might be, of itself, of but little significance, if it could be entirely limited to the District of Columbia. If that was to be the be-all and the end-all' of it, it might not be a thing worth debating. But, sir, we cannot avoid connecting it with the whole system that has been presented to us here for the abolition of slavery elsewhere. There are now on our table from ten to twenty propositions of one sort or another, all contemplating the confiscation, or, in other terms, the liberation of the slaves of the people of the United States. This is one of them. The public mind cannot avoid making the connection. This is but one link in the chain, and a small one; but it is a link in the mighty chain of measures which are in progress here now." Messrs. Bingham and Biddle, of Ohio, spoke in favor of the measure. "I would have," said the former, "the declaration made here now, beneath the dome of the capitol, careless of all consequences upon the future conduct of traitors in arms against us, that no man shall ever, in the coming future, as long as the Republic stands-here, at least, where our power of legislation is supreme-be deprived of his life, of his liberty, or of his property, without due process of law; and that slavery, or involuntary servitude, shall never be tolerated here, in all the hereafter, except as punishment for crime upon due conviction. That is simple justice; nothing more, nothing less; and it does seem to me that further argument in favor of a proposition resting upon the broadest, clearest principles of simple, even-handed justice, is unnecessary. One year ago, this day, slavery opened its batteries of treason upon your garrison in Fort Sumter, at Charleston; let the anniversary of that crime be signalized by the banishment of slavery forever from the national capital." Biddle saw the onward march of emancipation in the progress of the war. "Every day of its continuance, every delay, every dragging movement, makes this end the more inevitable. Every step on slavesoil, every battle fought, no matter with what temporary result; every musket fired, every sword brandished, every soldier that suffers, and every heart that mourns, but make this result the more absolute. Our early disasters-Bull Run and Ball's Bluff, the death of Lyon, and the removal of Fremont-shall all bear rich fruits; and the breeze that mournfully lifts the flag of the drowned Cumberland, where the bitter salt sea quenched the noblest hearts that ever burned with American heroism, shall yet bear to earth's ends the legend of a continent made free. Does any man dare wish EMANCIPATION IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. that the battle-fields that have drunk the blood of our brave and beautiful ones should ever again be printed with a fettered foot? Think of slaves tilling the valley of Bull Run, or the fire-girt field where Baker fell; of their turning up and grinning at the bones of the young heroes of the North around Donelson. Fancy the taskmaster lashing his bondmen to toil on the nameless plains of the far-off Tennessee, gorged with the red, rich, free, proud, bounding blood of the northwest!" The issue made by the opponents of the bill, and the fears of Crittenden were not denied. "I trust it is, indeed," exclaimed Fessenden, of Maine, "the harbinger of that brighter, brightest day at hand, when slavery shall be abolished wherever it exists in the land. This will be the one finality which will give us a righteous and a lasting peace. Lamartine beautifully said of Wilberforce, that he went up to the Eternal with a million of broken fetters in his hand as evidence of a life well spent. To be envied, indeed, would be the transit of the man who had held the august office of President of the United States who could bear in his hand to the throne of the Eternal the broken fetters of the millions of slaves of this nation, as evidence of its welcome obedience to the royal law and golden rule." When the vote was finally taken, at the close of the afternoon, it stood 92 in the affirmative, 38 in the negative. As thus adopted by both houses, the bill declared the immediate abolition of slavery in the District; provided for the appointment of three commissioners to determine the value of the liberated slaves, after hearing the representations of their late owners, awarding to the latter compensation on proof of their loyalty; and further, appropriated $100,000 to be expended under the direction of the President of the United States, to aid in the colonization and settlement of such free persons of African descent, now residing 519 in said District, including those to be liberated by the act, as may desire to emigrate to the republics of Hayti or Liberia, or such other country beyond the limits of the United States, as the President may determine. A sum not exceeding one million of dollars was appropriated to compensate the owners of the slaves; the aggregate of the apportionment not to exceed three hundred dollars for each liberated person. Ninety days were allowed masters to state their claims to the commissioners, who, within nine months of the passage of the act, were required to make a full and final report of their proceedings. On the 16th of April a message was sent to both Houses, the President stating that he had that day signed the bill. "I have never doubted," he added, "the constitutional authority of Congress to abolish slavery in this District; and I have ever desired to see the national capital freed from the institution in some satisfactory way. Hence, there has never been in my mind any question upon the subject except the one of expediency, arising in view of all the circumstances. If there be matters within and about this act which might have taken a course or shape more satisfactory to my judgment, I do not attempt to specify them. I am gratified that the two principles of compensation and colonization are both recognized and practically applied in this act." So, emancipation in the District of Columbia became the law of the land, and slavery was thus far denationalized. The abolition of slavery at the seat of government made it incumbent upon Congress further to provide by legislation for the amelioration of the condition. of the colored race in the District. Emancipation, accordingly, was speedily followed by the introduction of an act in the Senate by Grimes, of Iowa, providing for the education of colored children in the cities of Washington and Georgetown. By the census of 1860, it was found that there were 3,172 colored chil * dren in the District, and that a tax was "loaded with trophies." There was a paid by colored persons, amounting to scattering fire from the opposition, but $36,000, of which the school tax, ten per no very important debate. Cox, the cent on that sum, was appropriated ex- Southern sympathizer from Ohio, took clusively to the education of white chil- the old ground of complaint. He was dren. It was proposed to give the ben- "against this whole business. It was efit of this tax to those who paid it. The helping the enemies of the country. The municipal authorities were therefore re- conservative men of the House have the quired by the bill to set apart the school power, and ought to squelch' out the tax thus levied for the initiation of a sys- whole negro business. Scarcely had tem of primary schools for the education the roll been called at the beginning of of the colored children. The proposition the session, before a gentleman introwas too reasonable to admit of discussion, duced a bill connected with the negro, and the bill, therefore, early in May, and from that time until now, with the was passed in both Houses without de- exception of some days spent in the conbate. Previous to its passage an amend-sideration of the tax bill, the whole strain ment was engrafted upon it by Wilson, of the House had been devoted to the negro of Massachusetts, who had previously question. Heaven is sick, and earth is weacalled the attention of the Senate to the ry, of this damnable and dangerous iterahighly discreditable laws of Maryland, tion." He admitted, however, that when affecting the colored race, yet in force on the war was concluded it might be nethe Statute book, by which these and cessary "to reform, perhaps, some of our other acts were obliterated, and all per- opinions in respect to slavery." Arnold, sons of color in the District were placed, the originator of the bill, stated in few in relation to the laws, on the same foot- words the disposition of the House. ing with the whites. They were madeThere is nothing, certainly," said he, subject to the same ordinances, to be tried in the same way, and, on conviction, suffer the same penalties. The act of emancipation in the District of Columbia was speedily followed by the passage of another removing slavery from the Territories. The original title of this bill, as it was introduced by Arnold, of Illinois, in the House of Representatives, on the 24th of March, was "an act to render freedom national and slavery sectional," which, after its passage, was amended to read "an act to secure freedom to all persons within the Territories of the United States." The bill was taken up in the House on the 9th of May, in the midst of the exultation of the recent triumphs of the national arms at New Orleans, the debate being interrupted to invite to the floor Captain Bailey and Commander Boggs, who had just arrived at the capital from the Gulf squadron, as bearers of dispatches, *Speech in the Senate, Feb. 24, 1862. "in the present attitude of the institution of slavery towards the government of the United States, that should entitle it to any peculiar favor. To-day, it stands in the attitude of hostility to this government, and is using its utmost power to destroy this government, and the institutions of our country. The object of this bill is to exercise the constitutional power which Congress possesses to prohibit slavery. The design of the bill is to do what the gentleman from New York (Mr. Diven) says that he desires to do, to march up to the line of constitutional power, wherever we possess that power, and to that extent to prohibit this institution." At the next session, on the 12th, after a speech by Fisher, of Maryland, who, while he gave his voice against slavery, deprecated action in the premises, the bill was passed by a vote of 85 to 50. It was then introduced in the Senate, and passed on the 9th of June in that body, by 28 to |