favor of its continuance. It may well be asked by a considerate legislator, how long will the innocent heirs remain out of their property if they must sue and await the decision of the question in the courts? Shall it be until they attain their majority, or when? After the property has been once taken, there will, I fear, be but little remedy in the courts, for the judiciary itself may be the next department to cower before the behests of power and the "military necessity" of the hour.

Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to this bill, because I have gleaned from history a profound distrust of all such measures as a means of restoring allegiance and order. It is the system of revenge. It is hate enacted into law. It will not and it cannot come to good. It is unchristian. Indeed, any system which does not restore good will and kindness between the two sections, and especially if it robs the coming generation, will only tend to perpetuate with the children the hate which we might hope would evanish with time. Such a system is the very wantonness and excess of tyranny. It always has in it a self-punishing and corrective power. It carries a Nemesis with it as inexorable as fate. The history of Poland, Venetia, and Ireland should make us pause. Do we indeed desire to restore our Union? Do we desire to keep our plight to the Constitution? Do we crave in our hearts the return of that happier time when our public order reposed securely in the hearts of the people and in reverence for the Constitution? If we do, let us rather repeal our former harsh and vindictive legislation, and not enact other and harsher penalties; and if war must needs go on, if blood, blood, blood must still flow, and force must still be used against those who were once our brethren in the same nationality, then let us add to that force at every moment of decided success to our arms, at every pause in the dread conflict, the benignant policy of conciliation.

Mr. KELLEY. Will the gentleman from Ohio permit me to ask him the reference of his quotation from Dr. Lieber?

Mr. Cox. I will give it to the gentleman.

Mr. KELLEY. I do not know whether his quotation is a correct one, for the doctor has protested that the gentleman has always misquoted him, and charged him with entertaining opinions the reverse of what his opinions really are.

Mr. Cox. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, when he says I have misquoted Dr. Lieber, cannot be correct, for I have not pretended to quote him until to-day. I said the other day that he was opposed to the unrepublican scheme of conscription. I have the authority, and I will produce it at the proper time.

Mr. KELLEY. If the gentleman will permit me, I would like to have the doctor himself speak upon this subject. I hold in my hand a note from the doctor, of the date of December 6, 1863.

Mr. Cox. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is not quite as logical as I could wish. I do not propose now to discuss the conscription bill. I will pay my respects hereafter to the gentleman on that subject.

Mr. KELLEY. I would rather the question be between the gentleman from Ohio and the gentleman he quoted as authority than between the gentleman and myself.

Mr. Cox. I should feel it a much greater honor if it were so.

[Laughter.] I was about to conclude by oue general observation. The members upon this side of the House have not made, and do not intend to make, any factious opposition to this Administration. We intend to sustain it to the fullest extent of our ability in every legal way which it may mark out-in every way possible by which we can restore the old order of things in this country. Our views do not always agree with your views as to the best mode of restoring the Union and preserving the Constitution. If we could but agree upon one object-the rehabilitation of the States, with all their rights, dignity, and equality unimpaired— though our views may be diverse as to the means to attain that object, this Congress might carve out a historic fame as the restorer of that constitutional freedom which the last Congress did so much to destroy. Upon this side we will sustain any measure to put down rebellion which is warranted by the Constitution. But we will never lay sacrilegious hands upon the ark of our covenant. We constitute the constitutional opposition to this Administration. We have no opposition except it be inspired by that instrument. Its written grants of power, its limitations, and, especially in these times, its reserved powers, furnish the enginery of our antagonism. Drawing from this source, we fear no criticism. We defy all aspersions. Come evil or good report, we will labor-it may be in vain-to protect that instrument against any such breaches as that proposed by this bill and legislation of like character. Since I have been a member of this House I have labored, without rest, to make up in vigilance and study what I lacked in years and experience, that I might perform my whole duty to my constituents; and with one object ever uppermost in my mind-the object which Daniel Webster held to be first with a free people-the preservation of their liberty by maintaining constitutional restraints and just divisions of power.

Mr. ORTH. Before the gentleman from Ohio takes his seat, I would like to ask him one or two questions, and I have no doubt he will answer them without hesitation. My first question is, whether he is in favor of punishing the traitors who have been guilty of bringing on this rebellion?

Mr. Cox. Yes, sir. I am in favor of punishing traitors according to the Constitution, by trial, by conviction, and by all the modes pointed out for the punishment of treason.

Mr. ORTH. I have no doubt of that. My next question is, whether he is in favor of punishing traitors by the death penalty?

Mr. Cox. Yes, sir; and almost every day I have been voting money and men to inflict that penalty.

Mr. ORTH. I would ask him whether taking from innocent children the life of the father who sustains them, is not visiting the sins of the parent on the children?

Mr. Cox. Yes, sir; that is one of the incidents which, perhaps, might have once been avoided, but which we cannot now avoid, but for which, praise God! I am not responsible.

Now, I wish to ask the gentleman whether he is in favor of punishing innocent persons for the guilt of their parents?

Mr. ORTH. No, sir.

Mr. Cox. Well, sir, then you must be against this bill.

Mr. ORTH. I contend that we punish those who are guilty during their lifetimes.

Mr. Cox. I would be very glad to welcome the gentleman within the pale of humanity.

Mr. GARFIELD. I wish to ask my colleague a question, not with any factious purpose, nor with any design to prevent a calm discussion of so important a question as this. I am sorry that this discussion has assumed a somewhat partisan character. It ought not to have that character at all, and so far as I am concerned it shall not. I wish to ask my colleague a practical rather than a legal question. I wish to know whether the objection he raises to this bill is not itself obnoxious to this objection: we punish men for civil and for criminal offences, great and small, in all the higher and lower courts of the country, by taking their property from them, so that their children can never have the benefit of it after the parent's death. Now, while we do this constantly in our courts, by civil and criminal process, does not my colleague propose to make an exception in favor of the crime of treason? Why should not the children of traitors suffer the same kind of loss and inconvenience as the children of thieves and of other felons do? I ask the gentleman whether his position does not involve this great absurdity and injustice?

Mr. Cox. I will say to my colleague that, as he knows very well, in criminal procedures we do not at once by execution reach the real estate. But my colleague cannot withdraw me from my constitutional position as to this bill. All I propose to do in opposing this bill is to stand by the Constitution, and to stand by it all the time, regardless of consequences; and I will ask my distinguished colleague how he reads that clause of the Constitution under debate. Does he believe in the construction which has been given to it by the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. ORTH]? Does he believe that he can constitutionally take a traitor's property forever, or only during his life? Does he read the Constitution in opposition to Judge Story and to Judge Curtis? Would he set aside the construction given to it by the law of 1790? Or would he, dare he, with his oath upon him, now break the Constitution by voting for this measure, in order to get absolute title to the lands of those in revolt? Would he, to aggravate the punishment of the traitor, or to punish the innocent children of the rebels, break the Constitution?

Mr. GARFIELD. I would not break the Constitution for any such purpose.

Mr. Cox. I am very glad to hear that.

Mr. GARFIELD. I would not break the Constitution at all, unless it should become necessary to overleap its barriers to save the Government and the Union. But I do not see that in this bill we do break the Constitution. If the gentleman can show me that it violates the Constitution, I will vote against it with him, even though every member of my party votes for it; that makes no difference to me. I will say, however, that I had supposed that the intention of that clause of the Constitution was to prevent the punishment of treason when an individual was declared guilty of it after his death. I had supposed that that was the purpose of it, and if so, it seems that this bill is not obnoxious to the objection which the gentleman raises to it.

Mr. Cox. If the gentleman will examine that other clause of the . Constitution which I pointed out, he will find, as Judge Story found, that it provided for the outrage of trial and punishment of treason after the death of the person, by prohibiting all bills of attainder. The other clause of the Constitution is so exceedingly plain that the wayfaring man—even Mr. Lincoln himself-did not err in construing it.

MISCEGENATION.

FATE OF THE FREEDMAN-IMPROVIDENT EMANCIPATION-CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS CONSIDERED-LAWS OF PHYSIOLOGY-BLENDING OF RACES-PROGRESSIVE ABOLITION-DEMOCRACY NOT PRO-SLAVERY-NON-INTERVENTION ABOUT THE NEGRO.

On the 17th of February, 1864, the House were considering the bill to establish a Bureau of Freedman's Affairs, when, by a diversion from the regular debate, the subject of "Miscegenation" came up. The pamphlet upon which Mr. Cox based his remarks, afterwards turned out to be apocryphal. It was written by two young men connected with the New York press. So congenial were its sentiments with those of the leading Abolitionists, and so ingeniously was its irony disguised, that it was not only indorsed by the fanatical leaders all over the land, but no one in Congress thought of questioning the genuineness and seriousness of the document. This species of logical irony has been used by writers of greater fame than the authors of the pamphlet. Burke used it, and Archbishop Whately used it; the former to vindicate civilization, and the latter Christianity. The "Historic Doubts concerning Napoleon," by Whately, found its believers; and many a sceptic embraced its most absurd conclusions in his eagerness to repudiate the truth.

The speech given below had a very extensive circulation in the press of the country. The Republicans were much puzzled by the frankness of their secret champion. Mr. Beecher's paper indulged a suspicion that the author was not altogether in earnest; but in the same article it uttered the same sentiments contained in the pamphlet. On the 25th of February, 1864, in an article on the union of races, he "agreed with a large portion of these pages," referring to the pamphlet. He contended that every great nation had been married into its greatness by a union of many stocks. To quote :

"Like a coat of many colors, every great nation is a patchwork out of the shreds and remnants of former nations. The American people is, in like manner, a stock of many grafts. An amalgamation of races is going on here to an extent almost without a parallel in history. Every nation under the sun is making some gift of its blood to our American veins. Immigration from foreign lands was never so multitudinous as now. Leaving out of view our native-born Americans of English descent, there are enough of other stocks on this soil to make three other nations-namely, the Irish, the Germans, and the Ne

groes. Even the negroes number one million more than the whole population of the United States at the adoption of the Constitution. But these three stocks have not come hither to establish themselves as distinct peoples; but each to join itself to each, till all together shall be built up into the monumental nation of the earth! We believe the whole human race are one family-born, every individual, with a common prerogative to do the best he can for his own welfare; that in political societies, all men, of whatever various race or color, should stand on an absolute equality before the law; that whites and blacks should intermarry if they wish, and should not unless they wish; that the negro is not to be allowed to remain in this country, but is to remain here without being allowed-asking nobody's permission but his own; that we shall have no permanent settlement of the negro question till our haughtier white blood, looking at the face of a negro, shall forget that he is black, and remember only that he is a citizen. Whether or not the universal complexion of the human family at the millennium "will not be white or black, but brown or colored," we certainly believe that the African-tinted members of our community will in the future gradually bleach out their blackness. The facts of today prove this beyond denial. Already three-fourths of the colored people of the United States have white blood in their veins. The two bloods have been gradually intermingling ever since there were whites and blacks among our population. This intermingling will continue. Under slavery, it has been forced and frequent. Under freedom it will be voluntary and infrequent. But by-and-by-counting the years not by Presidential campaigns, but by centuries-the negro of the South, growing paler with every generation, will at last completely hide his face under the snow.'

Dr. Cheever's paper, "The Principia," accepting the theory of the pamphlet, and commending its earnest thought, said that it needed not a tithe of it to prove that God has made of one blood all nations of men, endowed them with equal rights, and that they are entitled to all the civil and political prerogatives and privileges of other citizens.

The "Tribune" of the 16th of March, 1864, urged the intelligent discussion of the subject, and accepting the "one blood" theory, drew the conclusion,

"That, under the Constitution in its most liberal interpretation, and admitting our cherished American doctrine of equal human rights, if a white man pleases to marry a black woman, the mere fact that she is black gives no one a right to interfere to prevent or set aside such marriage. We do not say that such union would be wise, but we do distinctly assert that society has nothing to do with the wisdom of matches, and that we shall have to the end of the chapter a great many foolish ones which laws are powerless to prevent. We do not say that such matches would be moral; but we do declare that they would be infinitely more so than the promiscuous concubinage which has so long shamelessly prevailed upon the Southern plantations. If a man can so far conquer his repugnance to a black woman as to make her the mother of his children, we ask, in the name of the divine law and of decency, why he should not marry her?"

Another remarkable phase of this discussion was the queries propounded by Robert Dale Owen, Dr. S. G. IIowe, and Col. McKaye, Commissioners on the Freedman, as to the capacity and condition of the mulatto, his offspring, and their tendency to bodily and mental decay. "The Anglo-African" of the 20th February, 1864, retorted very pungently upon these querists, and informed them that as the two publishers and one editor of "The Anglo-African" had had born to them in lawful wedlock no less than twenty-nine children, of whom twenty are now livingsome married and budding-they could not help regarding the queries as in a measure personal and impertinent.