900 JOINT RESOLUTIONS.
Report of the
Committee. |
the State and punishment of treason, which the
British Parliament, some centuries ago, alleged in
justification of similar acts.
Your Committee would not revive the dead issues
of the past, but truth and justice require that they
shall not evade the responsibilities of the present
crisis. This question of proscription involves the
consideration of the nature and character of the
offence which is thus proposed to be punished.
The Reconstruction Committee denounced it as a
crime of unmitigated rebellion and treason. In
all questions of criminality the motives and pur-
poses of the act fix its legal and moral character.
The same act may be wilful and premeditated
murder, or manslaughter, or excusable or justifia-
ble homicide, according to the motive which shall
appear to have actuated the party. Are not the
persons proposed to be proscribed, and all who
acted with them in the great war of secession en-
titled to be judged by the same elementary rule in
the administration of justice.
The question then is, were the people of the
States which attempted secession, honest and sin-
cere in their avowal of their belief in the right of
secession and of the reasons for its exercise? Be
their public documents cotemporaneous with their
action, they put themselves on trial before thy
country and the world for the truth and sincerity
of their avowals. The wager of battle decided
against their right of secession. That question
was thus finally settled; banished to the realms of
speculative abstractions. But in considering the
question of damages, is there anything in mitiga-
tion; was their action an unpardonable crime, or
was it a pardonable mistake.
In addition to their public, solemn cotempora-
neous declarations at the time of secession, and. be-
fore and daring the war, the Reconstruction Com-
mittee, after the close of the war, summoned be-
fore them Alexander H. Stevens, who had been
Vice President of the Confederate States. They
examined him on oath and report the following
question and answers: |
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