since emancipation is 3,660 pounds. He also states. that the cost per hogshead under slavery was £10 sterling, while in 1858 it was produced at a cost of £4 sterling. In Antigua, with a population of 35,000, they contribute equal to £1 sterling each by taxation, for the support of religious, charitable, and educational institutions. I assert that the experience of the British West Indies has demonstrated the capacity of the negro race.

I ask for this people justice. In the presence of these great events; in this exigency when the life of the nation is in peril, and when every reflecting person must see that the cause of that peril is injustice to the negro,-I ask that we shall now do justice to his race. They are four million. They will remain on this continent. They cannot be expatriated. They await the order of Providence. Their home is here. It is our duty to elevate them, to provide for their civilization, for their enlightenment, that they may enjoy the fruits of their labor and their capacity. The nation which is not just shall finally

"Stand

Childless and crownless in her voiceless woe,
An empty urn within her withered hand.”

NOTE.

The following resolutions, referred to in the foregoing speech, were presented to the House of Representatives on the sixteenth day of February, 1864:

Resolved, That the Committee on the Rebellious States be instructed to consider and report upon the expediency of recommending to this House the adoption of the following

"Declaration of Opinions:

"In view of the present condition of the country, and especially in view of the recent signal successes of the national arms promis

ing a speedy overthrow of the rebellion, this House makes the following declaration of opinions concerning the institution of slavery in the States and parts of States engaged in the rebellion, and embraced in the proclamation of emancipation issued by the President on the first day of January, A.D. 1863; and also concerning the relations now subsisting between the people of such States and parts of States on the one side, and the American Union on the other.

"It is therefore declared (as the opinion of the House of Representatives), that the institution of slavery was the cause of the present rebellion, and that the destruction of slavery in the rebellious States is an efficient means of weakening the power of the rebels; that the President's proclamation, whereby all persons heretofore held as slaves in such States and parts of States have been declared free, has had the effect to increase the power of the Union, and to diminish the power of its enemies; that the freedom of such persons was desirable and just in itself, and an efficient means by which the government was to be maintained, and its authority re-established in all the territory and over all the people within the legal jurisdiction of the United States; that it is the duty of the government and of loyal men everywhere to do what may be practicable for the enforcement of the proclamation, in order to secure in fact, as well as by the forms of law, the extinction of slavery in such States and parts of States; and, finally, that it is the paramount duty of the government and of all loyal men to labor for the restoration of the American Union upon the basis of freedom.

"And this House does further declare, That a State can exist or cease to exist only by the will of the people within its limits, and that it cannot be created or destroyed by the external force or opinion of other States, or even by the judgment or action of the nation itself; that a State, when created by the will of its people, can become a member of the American Union only by its own organized action and the concurrent action of the existing national government; that, when a State has been admitted to the Union, no vote, resolution, ordinance, or proceeding on its part, however formal in character or vigorously sustained, can deprive the national government of the legal jurisdiction and sovereignty over the territory and people of such State which existed previous to the act of admission, or which were acquired thereby; that the effect of the so-called acts, resolutions, and ordinances of secession adopted by the eleven States engaged in the present rebellion is, and can only be, to destroy those political organizations as States,

while the legal and constitutional jurisdiction and authority of the national government over the people and territory remain unimpaired; that these several communities can be organized into States only by the will of the loyal people, expressed freely and in the absence of all coercion; that States so organized can become States of the American Union only when they shall have applied for admission, and their admission shall have been authorized by the existing national government; that, when a people have organized a State upon the basis of allegiance to the Union and applied for admission, the character of the institutions of such proposed State may constitute a sufficient justification for granting or rejecting such application; and, inasmuch as experience has shown that the existence of human slavery is incompatible with a republican form of government in the several States or in the United States, and inconsistent with the peace, prosperity, and unity of the nation, it is the duty of the people, and of all men in authority, to resist the admission of slave States wherever organized within the jurisdiction of the national government."

330

THE ENROLMENT OF TROOPS AND THE PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION.

DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JUNE 25, 1864.

R. BOUTWELL. My chief purpose in de

MR siring to obtain the floor is to state to the

House the reasons by which I have been controlled thus far in refusing to vote for the proposition to repeal the commutation clause of the Enrolment Act. In the first place, I have given the vote in deference to what I suppose to be the public sentiment of the country. I understand that substantially — not exactly, perhaps, but substantially—the calls for troops by the President have been met. I thought, to be sure, from the observations of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Garfield], made this morning, that he supposed that because the Representatives on this floor from Massachusetts had refused to support the repeal of the commutation clause, as recommended by the Military Committee, they were prepared to indorse the observation which that gentleman made on the previous day, when this subject was under discussion, — an observation which I thought unfortunate; an observation which I thought calculated to alarm the country; an observation which I thought calculated to give strength, courage, and confidence to its enemies; an observation which, if my memory served me, to the very last words and the very last

letter used, I would not repeat here or elsewhere, even in the way of quotation. I thought, also, when he was referring to Massachusetts, that he supposed, inasmuch as we took the responsibility of differing from the judgment of the Military Committee, that therefore we were prepared to abandon this war, to sacrifice the country, and to involve it in irretrievable ruin. If it was his intention to suggest to the House and the country, that Massachusetts, or a man of hers who has a right to speak on her behalf, here or elsewhere, had come to any such conclusion, then he misunderstood, if he did not intentionally misrepresent, that State.

Mr. GARFIELD.-Do the gentleman's remarks apply to me?

Mr. BOUTWELL. To no other man upon this floor.

Mr. GARFIELD. I wish to say that I have made no reference whatever to Massachusetts; have never in my life intimated, by any word I have uttered, that Massachusetts was derelict of duty, for, if I love any State in the Union better than my own, it is Massachusetts; and I trust the gentleman from Massachusetts will not do me the wrong of intimating that I intentionally or unintentionally said any thing upon this floor disrespectful to that State. What I said in my closing remarks before the House, when this subject was last up, and which have been referred to this morning and criticised, I believe to be true. The same thing has been declared in higher places than mine, and we have got to meet it. It is courageous to meet it, and cowardly not to meet it.