soldier he is only in a position to express dif-
ferently his rights as an American citizen,
and to defend them as a soldier.
The gentleman says that in the revolution-
ary times soldiers were denied the privilege
of voting. At that time it mattered very
little, there were so very few that were sol.
diers, whether they voted or not. I do not
know that this question was discussed at that
day. But here to-day, every rising sun shows
more clearly that the time may arrive when
all of us may be soldiers; that every man of
us may yet be soldiers in defence of what. the
gentleman from Anne Arundel (Mr. Miller)
talks about!—constitutional liberty. The
day may arrive when the constitution may
be sunk out of sight. We have to defend
the heritage given to us by our fathers. If
we can retain the constitution they trans-
mitted to us, well and good. But we have
something more to do than that. We have
to maintain and delend our liberty. It may
become unnecessary in the future to say con-
stitutional liberty. Every rising sun, I re-
peat, brings us nearer lo the supposition, and
I do not know how distant the day may be
when all loyal American citizens shall have
to become American soldiers—not paid sol-
diers but volunteers, defending our liberties.
Then what shall happen ?
Then, according to the argument of the
gentleman, we shall lay aside all our civil
rights; we shall have nothing to do with the
government. If it is right for one main to
go and defend his country, it is right for
every other man to go if necessary; and
when that time arrives, as it may arrive,
when the whole mass of the community shall
be in arms, then, according to the gentle-
man's theory, there is no power left to or-
ganize out of chaos, if chaos comes, in the
confusion of arms, there will be nobody left
to organize a constitutional form of govern-
ment, because there will be? nobody left who
has not cast aside and shuffled off all his civil
rights as a citizen.
I wish to allude also to the statement made
by the gentleman in regard to the reports
that he has seen in certain newspapers, about
the elections that have been held so far, un-
der the sanction of laws of the States which
now allow their soldiers to vole. To a
man who looks upon this question properly
it is as plain as the sun at noon day how
these statements get into the papers. From
the very outset of the war until the present
time, all the copperhead journals of the
country have proclaimed what we all know
to be false, that the armies have been filled
with what they called the democracy; that
the men who held their peculiar views about
the policy of the administration, had gone to
swell the armies. It has been stated constantly
in the New York papers, and constantly in
the western papers of that particular persua-
sion. All the time they have been insisting |
that the abolitionists brought on the war,
but that all the democrats as they call them—
I call them copperheads—were fighting it
out.
How could they possibly be sustained be-
fore the world—how could they look up
without a blush of shame, unless they de-
clared that this vote which gave them the lie
was not a correct vote? They could not
avoid it. They were obliged to do it. Every
vote that has taken place from that day to
this has given them the lie in their teeth . I
have myself known plenty of votes that were
fair, votes given without authority and with-
out the necessary formula, votes entered into
voluntarily by whole regiments of men.
These votes have always satisfied me of the
political character of the army. But they
never satisfied these people, or at least that
complexion did not satisfy their purposes.
And as they had announced to the world that
the »hole army, or the large majority of it
was of their political persuasion, when it did
happen that certain States authorized the
proper expression of the sentiments of that
army, and when it did happen that the expression
so manifested gave them before the
world the lie, what could they do? They
could only say that the expression was not a
proper one. They could only fall back upon
the assertion that the election was a farce.
They were only consistent in their false-
hood; that is all. I challenge the gen-
tleman's refutation of my position upon that
question.
Mr. BERRY, of Prince George's. What is
the position before the country of the papers
the gentleman does not style copperhead pa-
pers? Have they ever told the truth yet?
Mr. PUGH. They are administration pa-
pers—Union papers. They are the class of
papers that may in the future be the general
expression of the sentiments of the people
who desire the continuance of the Union.
If the gentlemen opposed to the administration
to-day can get followers enough, it may
be hereafter that the administration papers
of the country shall lie the only exponents of
the class of people struggling for the existence
of this nation as a nation when every shred
of the constitution is gone.
Mr. BERRY, of Prince George's. Do I un-
derstand the gentleman to say that all the
persons striving to protect the administration
and sustain it, follow the lead of those pa-
pers? Does he vouch for the truth of the
papers claiming to be administration papers?
Mr. PUGH. No, sir; I distinctly vouch,
and that is all, for the falsity of the papers of
the persuasion hinted at by the gentleman
from Anne Arundel (Mr. Miller.) I state,
and I challenge the gentleman to refute it,
that those papers at the outset of this war
declared that the army was made up of
democrats, as they call them—not demo-
crats as I call them, for I call them all cop- |
