floor of this house, into whose minds their
inmost and secretest minds, the thought of
disloyalty has ever come—whole constituen-
cies, forty thousand men in number, should
be found to which this oath would be disfran-
chisement. The estimate of loyalty must
differ vastly between the gentlemen who rep-
resent these constituencies and myself. I do
not esteem a man at all loyal to the govern-
ment who could hesitate to take this oath; I
do not bold that there is an element of loyalty
in, him
I can understand that a man might be sim-
ply obedient, so far as not to risk his life in
treason, and yet decline to take this oath. I
can understand that a man might not have
been found raising the banner of revolt, or
inciting insurrection in his district, and yet
refuse to take this oath. But loyalty and
obedience are different things. A man, who
through fear has all his lifetime been kept in
bondage, is not a loyal man. Loyalty takes
hold of the heart, and the soul, and the life;
it impregnates a man with devotion to the
country he calls his own. It bids him give,
according to the best of his judgment, his
every power to the service of his country. And
I go farther; I much question the loyalty of
any man, in any portion of this country who,
through three years of civil war, has never
made his voice heard, to any person, or as-
semblage of persons, strongly, openly, clearly
and unequivocally in favor of the government
which protects him. Loyalty is something
which does, and not a thing which merely
leaves treason undone.
We are told that we extend the right of
suffrage. I deny that as a fact. That ques-
tion was argued before you so ably this morn-
ing that it seems almost trifling at this hour
to bring it again before the house. I had
not supposed there was an individual who
would for one single instant maintain that
under our present laws soldiers are not enti-
tled to vote. This is solely and simply a
question in relation to the place of voting. It
is astonishing that, after hearing fifteen or
sixteen speeches upon this subject, law essays
appeals to your judgments, your hearts, your
passions, denunciations of your course, there
should still be found some gentlemen in this
convention who cannot understand the per-
fectly clear words of a portion of that bill
under which we are assembled here. It does
seem as if much words had confused their
counsel; and that the more they heard, and
the longer they read that bill and the consti
tution, and the longer they talked about trea
son, and against treason, and what treason
was, they finally got so they could not make
the distinction between what law was am
what was not law; what constitutes treason
and what was not treason; what made a mac
loyal and what did not.
I was much astonished at one argument of
the gentleman from Prince George's (Mr |
Marbury,) which struck me as strange from
an ardent lover of freedom; from a man who
desired this constitution to be preserved; from
a man who, morning, noon, and night prayed
the Almighty to grant us this one thing of
constitutional liberty, and that freedom might
be preserved upon this continent. He com-
plained of the government of the United
States that it had used any means that came
into its hands to preserve itself. He actually
upon the floor of this house did complain of
and denounce this government, and did justi-
fy the cruelties practiced upon our suffering
prisoners in Richmond, because the govern-
ment of the United States had taken men with
black skins and put them in the front to be
shot. The gentleman phrased it differently :
he called it " putting slaves into the army."
But I ask what is the difference? I simply
put it in the other form, that they took men
of color and put them in the front to be shot,
that the gentleman from Prince George's,
myself, and others might not be shot. That
is only a different way of stating just the
same fact. And I cannot understand on what
ground be does, on the floor, to some extent
excuse the atrocities of these fiends at Rich-
mond upon our unarmed prisoners in their
hands, because of the use by the government
of the United States of negro soldiers; when
we have had members of this convention from
his own county urging upon the majority of
this body to take measures for having the
slaves enlisted in the armies of the United
States from Prince George's county, credited
to their quota. It is strange, to say the least
of it.
The gentleman from Calvert (Mr. Briscoe)
has alluded in remarks here to a foreigner
named Haynau. I suppose that, in his own
judgment, he found a counterpart to that
Austrian different from the one I found. 1
doubt me if the gentleman would have gone
as far south as Richmond to have found him.
But I know of no other place upon the civil-
ized earth that produces such men in such
boundless profusion as does the city of Rich-
mond. Every man there, from the so-called
president of the so-called confederate States,
down to the meanest and pettiest underling
whom be controls, who has in the slightest
degree countenanced that treatment of pris-
oners, is in comparison with Haynau a very
fiend of darkness; and at the judgment bar
that Austrian butcher will have a luminous
radiance around his bead in comparison with
the blackness of despair which will settle
upon the hearts of those men at Richmond.
This whole discussion upon the subject of
B this oath reminds me of those trite lines :
" Let the galled jade wince; my withers
i are unwrung."
i Now, if gentlemen will read this oath and
apply it to the hearts of the loyal constituen-
' cies they represent, they may find the reason
. why this oath is so unpleasant to them. |
