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(Adapted from
full
text, electronic version of
speech
transcribed by
Students at
Furman
University
from the Thaddeus
Stevens Papers. Asterisks [***] indicate edits of
the original document by Michael O'Malley)
Speech of the Hon. Thaddeus Stevens of
Pennsylvania, Delivered in the
House of Representatives, March 19, 1867, on the Bill (H.R.
No. 20) Relative to Damages to Loyal Men, and for Other
Purposes.
Mr. STEVENS said--
Mr.
SPEAKER: I am about to discuss the question of the
punishment of belligerent traitors by enforcing the
confiscation of their property to a certain extent, both as
a punishment for their crimes and to pay the loyal men who
have been robbed by the rebels, and to increase the pensions
of our wounded soldiers. The punishment of traitors has been
wholly ignored by a treacherous Executive and by a sluggish
Congress. I wish to make an issue before the American
people, and see whether they will sanction the perfect
impunity of a murderous belligerent, and consent that the
loyal men of this nation, who have been despoiled of their
property, shall remain without remuneration, either by the
rebel property or the property of the nation.
***
This
bill is important to several classes of people.
It
is important to our wounded and maimed soldiers, who are
unable to work for their living, and whose present pensions
are wholly inadequate to their support. It is important to
those bereaved wives and parents whose habiliments of woe
are to be seen in every house, and proclaim the cruel losses
which have been inflicted on them by the murderous hands of
traitors.
It
is important to the loyal men, North and South [5],
who have been plundered and impoverished by rebel raiders
and rebel Legislatures.
It
is important to four millions of injured, oppressed, and
helpless men, whose ancestors for two centuries have been
held in bondage and compelled to earn the very property, a
small portion of which we propose to restore to them, and
who are now destitute, helpless, and exposed to want and
starvation, under the deliberate cruelty of their former
masters.
It
is also important to the delinquents whose property it takes
as a fine--punishment for the great crime of making war to
destroy the Republic, and for prosecuting the war in
violations of all the rules of civilized warfare. It is
certainly too small a punishment for so deep a crime, and
too slight a warning to future ages[.]
***
Apply
these principles to the case in hand. The cause of the war
was slavery. We have liberated the slaves. It is our duty to
protect them, and provide for them while they are unable to
provide for themselves. Have we not a right, in the language
of Vattel, "to do ourselves justice respecting the object
which has caused the war," by taking lands for homesteads
[sic: for] these "objects" of the war?
Have
we not a right, if we chose to go to that extent, to
indemnify ourselves for the expenses and damages caused by
the war? We might make the property of the enemy pay the
$4,000,000,000 which we have expended, as well as the
damages inflicted on loyal men by confiscation and invasion,
which might reach $1,000,000,000 more. This bill is
merciful, asking less than one tenth of our just claims.
***
I
suppose none will deny the right to confiscate the [sic:
preperty] of the several belligerent States, as they all
made war as States; or of the Confederate States of America;
for no one ever denied the right of the conqueror to the
crown property of the vanquished sovereign, even where the
seizure of private property would not be justified by the
circumstances.
***
The
laws of war authorize us to take this property by our
sovereign power--by a law now to be passed. We have a
subdued enemy in our power; we have all their property and
lives at our disposal....we have a right to seize the
property named in this bill, and ten times more. You behold
at your feet a conquered foe, an atrocious enemy. Tell him
on what terms he may arise and depart or remain loyal. But
do not embrace him too hastily. Be sure first that there is
no dagger in his girdle.
***
Having,
as I conceive, justified the bill which I seek to have
enforced, let us now look to the provisions of the bill
under consideration. [9]
The
first section orders the confiscation of all the property
belonging to the State governments, and the national
government which made war upon us, and which we have
conquered. I presume no one is prepared to object to this,
unless it be those who condemned the conquest. To them I
have nothing to say, except to hope that they will continue
consistent in their love of the rebels; to show an exuberant
humanity into which is merged and submerged all the exalted
feelings of patriotism.
***
The
fourth section provides, first, that out of the lands thus
confiscated each liberated slave who is a male adult, or the
head of a family, shall have assigned to him a homestead of
forty acres of land, (with $100 to build a dwelling) which
shall be held for them by trustees during their
pupilage.
Let
us consider whether this is a just and [sic:
politic] provision.
Whatever
may be the fate of the rest of the bill, I must earnestly
pray that this may not be defeated. On its success, in my
judgment, depends not only the happiness and respectability
of the colored race, but their very existence. Homesteads to
them are far more valuable than the immediate right of
suffrage, though both are their due.
Four
million of persons have just been freed from a condition of
dependence, wholly unacquainted with business transactions,
kept systematically in ignorance of all their rights and of
the common elements of education, without which none of any
race are competent to earn an honest living, to guard
against the frauds which will always be practiced on the
ignorant, or to judge of the most judicious manner of
applying their labor. But few of them are mechanics, and
none of them skilled manufacturers. They must necessarily,
therefore, be the servants and victims of others, unless
they are made in some measure independent of their wiser
neighbors. The guardianship of the Freedmen's Bureau, that
benevolent institution, cannot be expected long to protect
them. It encounters the hostility of the old slaveholders,
whether in official or private station, because it deprives
these dethroned tyrants of the luxury of despotism. In its
nature it is not calculated for a permanent institution.
Withdraw that protection and leave them a prey to the
legislation and treatment of their former masters, and the
evidence already furnished shows that they will soon become
extinct, or driven to defend themselves by civil war.
Withhold from them all their rights, and leave them
destitute of the means of earning a livelihood, the victims
of the hatred or cupidity of the rebels whom they helped to
conquer, and it seems probable that the war of races might
ensue which the President feared would arise from kind
treatment and restoration of their rights. I doubt not that
hundreds of thousands would annually be deposited in secret,
unknown graves. Such is already the course of their rebel
murderers; and it is done with impunity. ...Make them
independent of their old masters, so that they may not be
compelled to work for them upon unfair terms, which can only
be done by giving them a small tract of land to cultivate
for themselves, and you remove all this danger. You also
elevate the character of the freedman. Nothing is so likely
to make a man a good citizen as to make him a freeholder.
Nothing will so multiply the productions of the South as to
divide it into small farms. Nothing will make men so
industrious and moral as to let them feel that they are
above want and are the owners of the soil which they till.
It will also be of service to the white inhabitants. They
will have constantly among them industrious laborers,
anxious to work for fair wages. How is it possible for them
to cultivate their lands if these people were expelled? If
Moses should lead or drive them into exile, or carry out the
absurd idea of colonizing them, the South would become a
barren waste.
Arguments for Confiscation
George
Clemenceau
J.
McKaye
Abolitionist
Wendell Phillips
General
Rufus Saxton
Radical
Republican Thaddeus Stevens
History 122
Reconstruction
HIST
122 Syllabus
End of Page.
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