this: We stand here to do the best we can
We stand here to deal with the Government
as a high contracting party. We stand here
to make a bargain. Would any man con-
sult so little the interest of any other man
for whom he had to act, as to give up every-
thing or surrender his property, and then
trust to receiving compensation when
none has been promised or agreed upon ?
Do men pay after they get what they
want, when they will not pay in order
to secure it? If the Federal Government
is so poor that it cannot pay for the
slaves now, and if the Government will
say, "Now give up this property on trust,
and we will pay hereafter," that would be
fair. There would be a pledge, an obligation,
and the contract could be carried out here-
after by payment of compensation, or could
be enforced. There would be something to
hold the Government bound by. Upon
these terms I would rely upon the plighted
faith of the Government. But the gentle-
man proposes to do a wrong to his people, to
take away their property without compen-
sation, and then trust to merely trying to
get it at some future day. In these days
of uncertainty, when no man knows what
the future will bring forth, I think the
gentleman trusts to a broken reed. If he
fails, will he have carried out in good faith
his pledges ?
Adopt this proposition, and I believe
Congress will not adjourn without making
the appropriation. It will continue in ses-
sion until it makes this appropriation to the
State rather than have emancipation fail.
Congress would make an appropriation of
twenty, aye, of fifty millions of dollars, if
they believed that the State of Maryland
had made compensation the condition
of emancipation, as we are bound in duty
to the people of the State to do, if we
discharge fully our obligations. Congress
would not adjourn, after the adoption of
the proposition I offered, until the appro-
priation was made. Of course, if the Con-
vention emancipates without conditions, it
releases the Government from all obligation
to pay, and the State assumes all the liabil-
ity resulting from emancipation. The Gen-
ral Government never will step in, and pay
ex mero motu for what the State says she
will not ask it to pay for, and which the
State does freely and voluntarily, from mo-
tives of public policy and to advance her
welfare. The gentleman from Howard
pursues a strange course to secure the com-
pensation to which he is pledged. He ad- |
vocates emancipation for reasons of State
policy, and seeks to effect it in the exact
manner which will release the General Gov-
ernment from all obligation or liability to
the State or its citizens,
And this, Mr. President, brings me to the
question of the constitutional power of
Congress under all the facts of the case, to
make this appropriation to the State of
Maryland.
I maintain, sir, that not only has
the State of Maryland a right to make
compensation by the General Government
a. condition of emancipation, but the Gene-
ral Government has the constitutional pow-
er to make such an appropriation to the
State, and not only the constitutional pow-
er, but is under a constitutional duty and a
moral obligation to pay to the State of
Maryland, in case she liberates her slaves,
a sum which will enable her to compen-
sate her citizens, based upon the number
of slaves in the State under the census of
1860.
Without admitting the power of the
General Government, to make appropria-
tions to carry out a general scheme of
emancipation in all the States—and I
shall show that my proposition does not
involve the maintenance of the affirmative
of this claim of power—I hold the govern-
ment has the power to make such an ap-
propriation to the State of Maryland.
Slaves, I have already shown, are recog-
nized as property by all branches of the
systems of government under which we
live, both State and Federal. Slavery in
Maryland has not been destroyed by the
war. Those in rebellion have carried off no
slaves worthy to be taken into consideration
in this argument. They have not escaped
to the Southern States, and there been
sheltered and protected by the enemies of
the government. The real value of slave
labor in Maryland has not been lessened.
On the contrary it is worth more, has
more real value now than before the
breaking out of the war, in consequence of
its scarcity and the high price of agricultu-
ral products. While its worth has been
diminished, not by the actual depreciation
of the value of negro labor, it results from
the insecurity of the tenure of that property,
caused not by State action—not by the ac-
tion of a foreign power—but by the direct
action of the Federal Government. This
destruction of the value of slave property
in Maryland has been produced, firstly, by
abolishing slavery in the District of Colum- |
