120. COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION.

To extend the principle of the proclamation of emancipation to the border States meant the alienation of loyal slaveholders, to permit slavery to continue in the North while it was prohibited in the South was contrary to the whole development of the struggle. A middle way was attempted by President Lincoln's favorite device of compensated emancipation, which had actually been applied in the District of Columbia. In his annual message of December 1, 1862, the President recommended the adoption of two amendments in regard to the compensation of slaves. The first of these provided for the compensation by the General Government of such States as should abolish slavery before January 1, 1900; the second declared that all the slaves who should have enjoyed actual freedom by the chances of war at any time before its end should be forever free, but all the owners of such who should' not have been disloyal should be compensated for them at the same rate as the State compensation, but no slave should be twice accounted for. A bill was presented in Congress proffering an indemnity; but the representatives from the border States defeated it. Later, after several of the border States had abolished slavery by their own act, amendments were introduced. The first of these was offered by Senator Powell of Kentucky, April 5, 1864, as an additional clause to the thirteenth amendment. It stipulated that no slave was to be emancipated unless the owner was first paid his full value.2 Three days later, Senator Saulsbury submitted a resolution which provided that whenever any State should free its slaves, it might apply for pecuniary assistance, and Congress might grant such relief not exceeding $100 for each person liberated.3 The last amendment on this subject was presented by Senator Davis of Kentucky, June 8, 1866, as an amendment to the resolution which later became the fourteenth amendment. The fourth section of this article among other things forbade the payment of any "claims for the loss or emancipation of any slaves." Mr. Davis proposed to insert in the sentence which guaranteed the validity of the public debt for the pay

1 App., Nos 973, 974. Blaine, Twenty Years in Congress, pp. 372–373, 445–448. Compen sated emancipation and colonization had been suggested in 1861, when a resolution was proposed in the New York legislature to call upon their Representatives and Senators to urge the plan. See Rhodes III, pp. 270-271.

2 App., No. 993.

3 App., No. 1017.

ment of pensions and bounties, the following: "Including bounties promised to the owners of slaves enlisted into the military service of the United States by act of Congress of February 29, 1864,"1

121. COMPENSATION FOR SLAVES PROHIBITED.

The implied pledge in Lincoln's message and the express act of Congress led, after the war, to fears that compensation might be secured later. It was early foreseen that naturally those who had lost their slaves by the result of the war, especially those whose investments had been largely in that class of property, would, in their peculiar distress, apply for remuneration for their losses. If the compensation was made it would, in connection with the already vast debt of the war, seriously impair the national credit. Accordingly, the statesmen of the Republican party deemed it wise, in order to preclude the possibility of such an event, to secure a constitutional prohibition. The first resolution proposing such an amendment was introduced by Mr. Williams of Oregon, in the Senate on the 5th of January, 1866.2 Somewhat later in the year, Mr. Lawrence of Ohio presented a similar amendment in the House, which he renewed on two different occasions during this Congress.3 Four similar amendments were presented in the Senate previous to the consideration of the fourteenth amendment. May 10 the House passed a resolution in the form reported by the Committee on Reconstruction. This resolution contained in its fourth section a clause forbidding the United States or any State paying "any claim for compensation for loss of involuntary service or labor." Seven amendments to this clause were proposed in the Senate, including the one previously referred to as presented by Senator Davis. The resolution submitted by Senator Clark of New Hampshire was substituted for the entire section, and the fourth section of the fourteenth amendment now stands in this form. In 1867, before the ratification of the fourteenth amendment had been assured, Mr. Ashley of Ohio introduced as one of a series of amendments an identical proposition.

1 App., No. 1187.

2 App., No. 1067. Committee on the Judiciary reported it adversely.

3 App., Nos. 1074, 1075, 1076.

4 App., Nos. 1105, 1122, 1129, 1133.

5 App., Nos. 1140; 1134d in Senate.

App., Nos. 1146, 1151, 1163, 1175c, 1182, 1186, 1187. Ante, par. 120.

App., No. 1182.

8 App., No. 1221.

122. TOTAL ABOLITION URGED.

Long before the question of compensation was closed, the institution of slavery had ceased to exist in nearly all parts of the Union. Public sentiment demanded that freedom should be conferred not simply by proclamation, or by ordinary legis lation, but guaranteed by the organic law of the land.

In response to this feeling, Mr. Ashley of Ohio, on the 14th of December, 1863, presented to the House a resolution providing for the submission to the States of a proposition to amend the Constitution "prohibiting slavery or involuntary servitude in all of the States and Territories now owned or which may be hereafter acquired by the United States." The phraseology of the amendment differed but slightly from the thirteenth amendment as adopted, following the language of the ordinance of 1787. On the same day Mr. Wilson of Iowa also proposed an amendment to the effect that "slavery being incompatible with free government, is forever prohibited in the United States; and involuntary servitude should be permitted only as a punishment for crime," and that Congress should have power to enforce the same by "appropriate legislation." Both propositions were referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, but were not brought up for debate until the last day of the succeeding May, five months after their introduction. Four other resolutions of a similar character were subsequently introduced in the House during the session.3 One of these was a simple resolution declaring that the Constitution ought to be so amended as to abolish slavery, and was designed to test the spirit of the House. It was passed by a vote of 78 to 62.

2

In the meantime the subject had been brought up in the Senate. January 11, 1864, Mr. Henderson of Missouri introduced a resolution proposing two amendments to the Consti

I App., No. 981. See letter of Mr. Ashley of December 22, 1892, in "Orations and Speeches" of James M. Ashley, pp. 330-331, and appendix. The only difference was that in Ashley's proposition section 1 contained "its jurisdiction" instead of "their jurisdiction," and in section 2, "by laws duly enacted" instead of "by appropriate legislation." Blaine, Twenty Years in Congress, I, pp. 504-505. Mr. Ashley had also introduced the bill for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, which was also modeled after the language of the ordinance of 1787.

2 App., No. 982.

3 Mr. Windom of Minnesota, Mr. Arnold of Illinois, Mr. Norton of Illinois, and Mr. Stevens of Pennsylvania. The last also made provision for striking out the clause in the Constitution for the return of persons held to service or labor. App., Nos. 1031, 1032, 1034, 1035.

tution. The first of these provided, in terms similar to those of Wilson's resolution, for the abolition of slavery; the second, for the reduction of the majorities required for the proposal and ratification of amendments. It was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. A few days later, Mr. Sumner sub. mitted a joint resolution declaring that "all persons are equal before the law, so that no person can hold another as a slave." With some Democratic opposition, it was referred, like the preceding, to the Committee on the Judiciary. February 1 the committee reported adversely on Mr. Sumner's resolution,3 and proposed as a substitute for Mr. Henderson's proposition the article that subsequently became the thirteenth amendment. Naturally, this amendment met with determined and violent opposition by those Senators who still believed in slavery. All the attempts to amend the article, save those úrged by Senator Sumner in favor of a different phraseology, or to add additional sections,5 were made by the few members who came from the slave States. Senator Garrett Davis of Kentucky was particularly conspicuous by reason of his long and very fiery speeches against the amendment, and the numerous "singular and factious amendments" which he presented from time to time, eight in all. Like Sieyès, who in the days of the French Revolution was ever ready with a new draft of a constitution, so Mr. Davis was ever ready with an amendment. On the 3d of March he introduced two amendments as a substitute for the committee's proposition. One of these provided that no negro should be a citizen of the United States or eligible to any office under the United States, the other that New England should be divided into two States. The division proposed was very singular, inasmuch as Maine and Massachusetts were to form the State of East New England, the rest of the States, West New England. Thus the latter State would not be formed of contiguous territory, but of two sections separated by many miles. Later, he introduced a new amendment for the division of New England which showed more regard for the geography of that region, but he withdrew it before it could come to a vote. This was doubtless intro. duced to show his antipathy to Massachusetts, for he previously remarked that "the most effective single cause of the 5 App., Nos. 986, 998.

1 App., Nos. 983, 984.

2 Post, par. 181.

3 App., No. 1024.

4 App., No. 985.

6 App., Nos. 987, 988, 989, 990, 991, 992, 994.

7 App., Nos. 987, 988.

8 App., No. 989. See Ante, par. 46.

pending war has been the intermeddling of Massachusetts with the institution of slavery." The other amendments were submitted by him sometimes as substitutes for, and sometimes as additional sections to, the committee's resolutions. One of these provided that the slaves should not be entitled to their freedom until removed from the slave States by the Government of the United States; another that Congress should provide for the distribution and settlement of all the freedmen of African descent in the United States among the several States and Territories in proportion to their white population;2 another still, made provision for the nomination of candidates for the Presidency by the States and for the election of President by a unanimous vote of Congress. This same amendment was subsequently introduced by him as an independent proposition and is treated elsewhere.3

4

Senator Powell of Kentucky was not far behind his colleague in offering amendments. Some of his propositions were unobjectionable in themselves, but were evidently prompted by a desire to embarrass the abolition amendment. The antislavery men desired the thirteenth article to go before the people as a distinct proposition and unencumbered, and consequently thwarted these attempts to amend. Mr. Powell presented four distinct amendments, one providing that "no slave should be emancipated unless the owner shall be first paid the full value thereof;" another on the term and eligibility of the President; another limiting the power of the President to make removals, and still another to prohibit riders. It was reserved for Senator Saulsbury of Delaware, on the day of the final vote on the question in the Senate, to present a substitute amendment containing the unparalleled number of twenty sections. These he declared he presented in a spirit of compromise and conciliation. The character of these propositions can be seen by an examination of the Appendix. Suffice it

to say here that the first article asserted certain rights of the people, which Mr. Saulsbury evidently considered had been abused in the past. The remainder of the sections were, to a large degree, similar to some of the propositions presented in the Thirty-sixth Congress in 1860-61. The first section declared that all the provisions of this article relating to slavery should not be altered without the consent of all the States