Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/587

Attitude of Stevens toivard Conduct of Civil Jldr 577 to be in court at all. . . . They can not be permitted to come in here and tell us that we must be loyal to the Constitution.' When he was asked how members of Congress who had taken an oath to support the Constitution could violate it in their action, whether rebels complain of it or not, he replied that they do not violate it when they are operating against men who have no rights to the benefits of the Constitution. The law of nations was plain upon this point, the law established in the days of Cicero, " Inter arma silent leges." " This is a law that has been in force to the present time, and any nation that disregards the law is a poor pusil- lanimous nation which submits its neck to be struck off by the enemy." Stevens admitted that the Constitution, while it was in force for the South, did not authorize Congress to interfere with slavery in the states. While the Constitution and laws were supreme no one would attempt it. But when the Constitution had been repudiated and set at defiance by armed rebellion the case was different. There were not [he said] three thousand abolitionists, properly so called in the United States. Before this war the parties were bound together by a compact, by a ireaty, called a Constitution. They ad- mitted the validity of municipal laws binding on each. This war has cut asunder all these ligaments, abrogated all these obligations. Since these States have voluntarily thrown off that protection and placed themselves under the law of nations, it is not only our right but our duty to knock off every shackle from every limb. He who wishes to re-establish the Union as it was cannot escape the guilt of attempting to enslave his fellow-men. The " Union as it was and the Constitution as it is ", is an atrocious idea ; it is man-steal- ing. The Southern States have forfeited all rights under the Consti- tution which they have renounced. They are forever estopped from claiming the Constitution as it was. The United States may give them those rights if it choose, but they cannot claim them. If a disgraceful peace were made leaving the cause of this rebellion and the cause of future wars untouched and living, its authors would be the objects of the deepest execration and of the blackest infamy. . . . All this clamor against radicals, all this cry of the " Union as it was ", is but a persistent effort to re-establish slavery and to rivet anew forever the chains of bondage on the limbs of immortal beings. ^May the God of Justice thwart their designs and paralyze their wicked efforts.' Stevens believed that in an emergency in order to " snatch the nation from the jaws of death " Congress was authorized to de- clare a dictator. It was a fearful power, and he hoped the necessity for it would never arise. But the safety of the people is the supreme ^Congressional Globe, August 2, 1861. -Ibid., January 22, 1864.