Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/591

 Attitude of Stevens toivard Condiiet of Civil War 58 1 stated it, Blair maintained that the secession doctrine was " abso- lutelv recognized, with more distinctness than Calhoun ventured to urge it." Here the majority of disloyalists in a State [said Blair] have the right admitted to over-ride a minority of loyal men and make them forswear their allegiance to the Union. Xo man. North or South, ever asserted the secession cause so boldly in the forum as the gentleman from Pennsylvania. He founds the rebel government upon the will of a majority of the people; proclaims that the minority, though loyal to the General Government (which has a right to the allegiance of all) must abandon the states or subscribe to their authority; insists that the usurpation has established independent states endowed with all the immunities and rights of an independent nation carrying on a legitimate war. This is the secession, abolition, absolute-conquest doctrine which the gentleman has broached in defiance of national and State Constitu- tions, the law of the civilized world and of all humanity.' On May 2, 1864, during the discussion in the House on the Wade-Davis plan of reconstruction, Stevens had occasion to refer to these criticisms. He restated his position that the South was only a belligerent, with such rights only as the laws of war might accord. The fact of their being rebels as well as belligerents put them in a worse predicament and only extended our rights and justified the suniinuiu jus of martial law. In urging again a general scheme of confiscation he said the country should decide whether this was an unjust war, and whether the enemy was obstinate and ought to bear the burden of the war. Stevens pictured in vigorous language the suffering and destruc- tion of the war, which he denounced as unjust and as deserving of punishment. " If we are not justified ", he said, " in exacting the extreme demands of war then I can hardly conceive a case where it would be applicable. To allow them to return with their estates untouched, on the theory that they have never gone out of the Union, seems to me rank injustice to loyal men." Stevens replied with special vigor to Blair, " whose speech "", he said, " contained the distilled virus of the copperhead." He recog- nized that selling estates in perpetuity as the result of attainder for treason was forbidden by the Constitution; conviction for treason could work no such consequence. What he contended for was the forfeiture of the property of rebels as enemies. Blair had said that Stevens had " treated with scorn the idea that States held in duress by the rebel power have a right to look to our laws and Constitution for protection." Stevens replied : This is a false statement of my position. If the armies of the Confederate States should overrun a loyal state and hold it in duress, 'Congressional Globe, February 5, 1864.