revised or annulled by any tribunal or magistrate. If it can be so revised, then a judge having no official knowledge of the foreign or domestic political affairs of the nation is competent to annul the act of the President in a matter relating to the public safety. This claim is too absurd to be refuted, and too monstrous to be defended. The President is the commander-in-chief of the army and the navy. In the hands of an unscrupulous man, this power could be made to include the power to annul rather than to suspend the writ of habeas corpus; and hence the denial of the right in the President to suspend the writ, is only calculated to diminish the power of a conscientious and capable magistrate to protect the rights of the people, while the power of a bad President to oppress the country remains undiminished in his authority as the commanderin-chief of the army and the navy.

The right to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, as a constitutional right vested in the President, gives to a bad man no power to harass the people, which, as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, he could not at any moment assume; while the denial of the right deprives a patriotic and trustworthy magistrate of a chief means of preserving the public liberties in time of public peril.

A reasonable apprehension of tyranny is no doubt wise; but there is no wisdom in the denial by a free people of those powers which are essential to the public welfare.

There should be faith in rulers and faith in the people. The nation has all the capacities which come from six centuries of progress in England and

America. If any thing good shall be overthrown in the present convulsions, it will re-appear when peace returns. The evil that is crushed, the tyranny that is removed, will never again disturb the peace. or retard the progress of the land. The people will hate tyranny more than ever before: their love of liberty will be purer and holier.

Libertas a Deo est et perire non potest.

239

CONFISCATION OF REBEL PROPERTY.

SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JAN. 19, 1864, UPON THE JOINT RESOLUTION TO AMEND A JOINT RESOLUTION, EXPLANATORY OF "AN ACT TO SUPPRESS INSURRECTION, TO PUNISH TREASON AND REBELLION, TO SEIZE AND CONFISCATE THE PROPERTY OF REBELS, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES," APPROVED JULY 17, 1862.

THE

HE subject before the House, uninteresting as a matter of debate, is already a good deal hackneyed. Having assented in the committee to this report, it may not be amiss for me to state, with such clearness and brevity as I can command, the grounds on which my assent was given.

It was suggested by the gentleman from New York [Mr. Kernan], who spoke early in this debate, that, while he doubted the constitutional authority of Congress to confiscate the real estate of traitors absolutely, even if he were convinced of that authority, he should doubt the wisdom of such a public policy. I submit to that gentleman, and to those who sympathize with him upon this point, that, if it be clearly shown that such a power exists, then it was granted by the framers of the Constitution for some purpose, anticipating or apprehending an exigency in the fortunes of the country when it might be expedient and proper to put that power in full force.

If the power is found in the Constitution, I ask the gentleman from New York whether he is of opinion that the men who framed the Constitution could have anticipated any condition of public affairs in which the exigency would be more urgent than that which exists at the present time? It is well enough for nations to be merciful, but justice is a higher attribute than mercy. If the power exists, I submit that the exigency for its extreme exercise exists also. It is a very different thing to men engaged in this treason, whether they hold their lands by authority of law, or whether they hold them at the pleasure and by the favor of the government against which they have rebelled. In this condition of things, I maintain that it is the duty of the country and government to seek for a true interpretation of the Constitution, to ascertain as exactly as possible the limits of Congressional authority, and march boldly in the organization of a system of justice and penalties to the very limits of that authority, wherever they may be found ; and, then, let the amnesty come, so that we can distinguish between great offenders, who, of their own motion in violation of the Constitution,-in violation of the rights, not only of their country, but of all mankind, not only of this age, but of all coming ages, rebelled against the government, and those who have been duped, misled, seduced from their public duty. On these we will have compassion; and gentlemen on the other side will come to understand, that the majority here and in the country will execute justice, and remember mercy also.

I am not sure, sir, that there is any material dif

ference between the report of the committee, and the amendment proposed by the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, in the effect to be produced on such rebels as may be made amenable to the statute of July 17, 1862. I understand the joint resolution now before the House to be of such a character, that, if adopted, it will be the duty of the courts of the country to administer the penalties prescribed in the law, to the full limits of constitutional authority. If by repealing the joint resolution of July 17, 1862, and putting into operation the law unrestricted, or if by enacting another and more stringent statute, we transcend the Constitution, it will be the duty of the courts to limit the statute within constitutional authority. Therefore, practically, I do not see that there is a difference between the joint resolution, and the amendment proposed by the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens].

Mr. STEVENS.-The resolution of the committee restricts all the forfeitures under the Confiscation Act to what they are already in the case of attainder for treason in the Constitution. Now, the act itself has no reference to the section of the Constitution referred to; but there are confiscations outside of that entirely, not for treason, but as the property of alien enemies. Therefore the resolution of the committee confines the operation of the act of 1862 much more than the original resolution did. If the gentleman will modify the resolution so as to make it read that the act of 1862 shall produce no forfeiture beyond the limits of the Constitution, I am content.