the very highest developement of the States'
rights theory.
Now, sir, quantum mutatis, we were not
satisfied with that; we adopt the theory of
consolidation, and instantly, upon the adop-
tion of that theory, comes, as a necessary
consequence, coercion. If you have all pow-
er over these States of course you must en-
force it when they recalcitrate. Three brief
years, and we have expended, I believe, more
money, or created mure debt than we did in
all the seventy-two before. We have bur-
dened our posterity, not to speak of ourselves,
with an almost crushing weight of debt. We
have overturned all the principles upon which
our Government has been heretofore, admin-
istered. We have set aside every guarantee
that surrounded property; we have destroyed
the habeas corpus, we have rendered the bill
of rights of Maryland a nullity, and we have
submilled to despotism in every form in which
it can he exercised—to the crudest of all
despotisms, that of mean and contemptible
subordinates, who are responsible to nobody,
and from whose oppression you can have no
relief. We have in Maryland sounded the
lowest depths that any people can sound, in
the practice of oppression and the practice of
tyranny.
But to take a broader field of view than
that. What have we now under the new
theory and practice of the Government? We
have a country divided, distracted, ruined,
devastated. I know the evils that have
sprung from this, and appreciate them,
Mr. SANDS. Will the gentleman allow me
to ask him a question ?
Mr. BELT. Not now. I feel as the gentle-
man from Baltimore city (Mr. Cushing) who
spoke of it has said he feels. He spoke of the
horrors of this war, as shown in the treat-
ment of prisoners. It is horrid if true; I
mourn over it and weep over it. if true it is
a disgrace to human nature. But that is not
the only evil consequence that has resulted
from this system. My tears also flow when
I recollect that that portion of the mother of
States, the mother of Presidents, the great
originator of the very principles which we
hold most dear as the very substratum of
constitutional liberty in the known world—
that portion of Virginia which stretches from
Washington to the Rapidan, embracing
Mount Vernon and other classic spots, is this
day a howling wilderness; that outside of
the town of Fredericksburg there is scarcely
a tenement to be seen standing, scarcely a
tree that is not uprooted. When I think of
the horrors resulting from this war, I bring
to memory the defenceless women and chil-
dren who have been driven from their homes,
and who, as they have paused upon the ad-
jacent hills, have witnessed the fires that con-
sumed the places where they were born, the
homes of their ancestors for upwards of a
century. |
I look on the houseless babes turned out,
the fatherless children sent upon a cruel
world, under circumstances of deprivation,
and nearly of starvation in the restricted
condition of the South, these houseless peo-
ple, these suffering women and thee weeping
children, that were as much entitled too mercy
as prisoners of war were entitled to it, be-
cause they were in your power; they were
within your lines; you destroyed I their coun-
try. There are two sides to this question of
horrors.
We are asked, and I am amazed at the ap-
parent sincerity with which gen lemon ask
the question, whether we have any reason to
believe that peace would ensue, if a proposi-
tion were made. You do not try it. You
say that we shall not try it. If we suggest
it, you say we are traitors. We are traitors
here to-day, on your theory, unless we en-
dorse the doctrine that nobody is ever to
propose peace. In other words, it is to be
war all the time. Try peace. They who
have proved themselves so terrible in con-
flict, are cunning in counsel also. If we can-
not suggest the means by which peace can be
secured, perhaps they can. Perhaps they can
indicate the terms upon which they are will-
ing to restore the Constitution and a com-
mon government in all the States. Why not
try it? Why proceed in this wild destructive
scheme? Why are these armies confronting
each other for a week at a time in deadly
conflict, strewing the whole earth with
corpses? Can nothing be done? Is no
proposition to be made? Cannot the stronger
party in the fray be generous enough to pro-
pose a cessation of strife—an armistice? No-
body knows the result that would come from
it. You take it for granted that no terms
will be offered, or that they will be inadmis-
sible, and therefore you do not make the
offer. You have no right to take that for
granted.
I plant myself here to day, independently
of all party prejudices, independently of all
constructions of the Constitution, all powers
and all rights, in favor of peace; because it
is the primary essence of any liberty, any
government, or the enjoyment of any right
which a freeman is interested in having. I
want peace, and not the sword. I want a
cessation of this horrid conflict. I do not
presume to say who is right and who is wrong
about it. Doubtless, both are wrong in a
measure. I say, stop this strife, which is
pursued in violation of the theory of govern-
ment established by Washington, that we
have no right to subjugate a portion of the
country. Recall these armies, and have an
armistice declared. I have a hope, if nobody
else has, that it will be possible, after this ex-
haustion, bloodshed, suffering and demorali-
zation, after this humiliation of ourselves in
the eyes of our consciousness, and in the eyes
of foreign nations, for arms to cease to clash, |
