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to add the tongue to the pen, the voice to the document, the explanation to the text, and nothing more. It is simply a proposition to add to our facilities by having the Secretaries here to explain orally what they have already transmitted in documentary form.

And this brings me to the third and last point that I propose to examine in this discussion, - the policy of the proposed change, on which, I admit, there is much room for difference of opinion. The committee have given a very exhaustive statement of its advantages in their report, and I will only enlarge upon a few points in their statement.

And, first of all, the proposed change will increase our facilities for full and accurate information as the basis of legislative action. There are some gentlemen here who doubt whether we have a right to demand information from the heads of Departments. Do we get that information as readily, as quickly, and as fully as we need it? Let me read an extract illustrative of the present plan. The President of the United States, in his last annual message to Congress, says: "The Report of the Secretary of War, and accompanying documents, will detail the campaigns of the armies in the field since the date of the last annual message, and also the operations of the several administrative bureaus of the War Department during the last year. It will also specify the measures deemed essential for the national defence, and to keep up and supply the requisite military force." Has that report been received? This message was delivered to us at the commencement of the present session; we are now within five weeks of its close; but to this hour we have had no report from the Secretary of War, no official advice from him in reference to the "measures deemed essential for the national defence, and to keep up and supply the requisite military force." We have been working in the dark, and it is only as we have reconnoitred the War Department, and forced ourselves in sidewise and edgewise, that we have been able to learn what is considered essential for the national defence. Had this resolution been in force, we should long ago have had his report in our hands, or his good and sufficient reason for withholding it.

I call the attention of the House to the fact, that our table is groaning under the weight of resolutions asking information from the several Departments that have not been answered.

Who does not remember that, at a very early day of the session, a resolution, introduced by a member from Indiana,1 was unanimously adopted, asking why the order of the House had been neglected, and we had not been furnished with the information? But this also has fallen a brutum fulmen; we have received no answer. Could these things be, if the members of the legislative and executive departments were sitting in council together? Should we not long ago have had the information, or known the reason why we did not have it?

I want this

On the subject of information, I have a word more to say. We want information more in detail than we can get by the present mode. For example, it would have aided many of us, a few days since, when the Loan Bill was under consideration, if the Secretary of the Treasury had been here to tell us precisely what he intended in regard to an increase of the volume of the currency under the provisions of the bill. We want to understand each other thoroughly; and when this is done, it will remove a large share of the burdens of legislation. One other point on the policy of the measure. joint resolution passed to readjust the relations between the executive and legislative departments, and to readjust them so that there shall be greater responsibility to the legislative department than there now is, and that that responsibility shall be made to rest with greater weight upon the shoulders of the executive authority. I am surprised that both the gentleman from Vermont and the gentleman from Ohio declare that this measure would aggrandize the executive authority. I must say that, to me, it is one objection to this plan, that it may have exactly the opposite effect. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that the fame of Jefferson is waning, and the fame of Hamilton waxing, in the estimation of the American people, and that we are gravitating towards a stronger government. I am glad we are, and I hope this measure will cause the heads of Departments to become so thoroughly acquainted with the details of their office as to compensate for the restrictions imposed upon. them. Who does not know that the enactment of this law will tend to bring our ablest men into the Cabinet of the republic? Who does not know that, if a man is to be responsible for his executive acts, and also be able to tell why he proposes new measures, and to comprehend intelligently the whole scope of

1 Mr. Holman.

his duties, weak men will shrink from taking such places? Who does not know that it will call out the best talent of the land, both executive and parliamentary? What is the fact now? I venture to assert, that the mass of our executive information comes from the heads of bureaus, or perhaps from the chief clerks of bureaus, or other subordinates unknown to the legislative body. I would have it, that, when these men bring information before us, they shall themselves be possessed of the last items of that information, so that they can explain them as fully as the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means ever explains his measures when he offers them to the House.

One more word, Mr. Speaker. Instead of seeing the picture which the gentleman from Ohio1 has painted to attract our minds from the subject-matter itself to the mere gaudiness of his farcical display, instead of seeing that unworthy and unmanly exhibition in this House which he has described, I would see in its place the executive heads of the government giving information to, and consulting with, the representatives of the people in an open and undisguised way. Sir, the danger to American liberty is not from open contact with departments, but from that unseen, intangible influence which characterizes courts, crowns, and cabinets. Who does not know, and who does not feel, how completely the reason of a member may be stultified by the written dictum of some head of Department, that he thinks a measure good or bad, wise or unwise? I want that head of Department to tell me why; I want him to appeal to my reason, and not lecture me ex cathedra, and desire me to follow his lead just because he leads. I do not believe in any prescriptive right to determine what legislation shall be. No, sir; it is the silent, secret influence that saps and undermines the fabric of republics, and not the open appeal, the collision between intellects, the array of facts.

I hope, Mr. Speaker, that this measure will be fairly considered. If it do not pass now, the day will come, I believe, when it will pass. When that day comes, I expect to see a higher type of American statesmanship, not only in the Cabinet, but also in the legislative halls.

1 Mr. Cox.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT

ABOLISHING SLAVERY.

SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 13, 1865.

FEBRUARY 10, 1864, Mr. Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, reported to the Senate, from the Committee on the Judiciary, this Joint Resolution:

"Be it resolved, etc., etc., That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the said Constitution, namely: —

"ARTICLE XIII. Sect. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

"Sect. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

April 8 following, this resolution passed the Senate. June 15, it was rejected in the House. The same day, a motion to reconsider the vote was entered. At the next session, January 6, 1865, the motion to reconsider was taken up and discussed at length. On this motion, January 13, Mr. Garfield made the speech that follows. The 31st of the same month the question to reconsider carried, and the same day the resolution was adopted. December 18, 1865, the Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, issued his certificate to the effect that, the requisite number of States having ratified the proposed amendment, it had become valid to all intents and purposes as a part of the Constitution of the United States.

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R. SPEAKER, — We shall never know why slavery dies so hard in this republic and in this hall till we know why sin has such longevity and Satan is immortal. With marvellous tenacity of existence, it has outlived the expectations of its

friends and the hopes of its enemies. It has been declared here and elsewhere to be in all the several stages of mortality, wounded, dying, dead. The question was raised by my colleague1 yesterday whether it was indeed dead, or only in a troubled sleep. I know of no better illustration of its condition than is found in Sallust's admirable history of the great conspirator Catiline, who, when his final battle was fought and lost, his army broken and scattered, was found, far in advance of his own troops, lying among the dead enemies of Rome, yet breathing a little, but exhibiting in his countenance all that ferocity of spirit which had characterized his life. So, sir, this body of slavery lies before us among the dead enemies of the republic, mortally wounded, impotent in its fiendish wickedness, but with its old. ferocity of look, bearing the unmistakable marks of its infernal origin.

Who does not remember that thirty years ago-a short period in the life of a nation - but little could be said with impunity in these halls on the subject of slavery? How well do gentlemen here remember the history of that distinguished predecessor of mine, Joshua R. Giddings, lately gone to his rest, who, with his forlorn hope of faithful men, took his life in his hand, and in the name of justice protested against the great crime, and who stood bravely in his place until his white locks, like the plume of Henry of Navarre, marked where the battle for freedom raged fiercest! We can hardly realize that this is the same people, and these the same halls, where now scarcely a man can be found who will venture to do more than falter out an apology for slavery, protesting in the same breath that he has no love for the dying tyrant. None, I believe, but that man of more than supernal boldness from the city of New York,2 has ventured, this session, to raise his voice in favor of slavery for its own sake. He still sees in its features the reflection of beauty and divinity, and only he. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!" Many mighty men have been slain by thee; many proud ones have humbled themselves at thy feet. All along the coast of our political sea these victims of slavery lie like stranded wrecks, broken on the headlands of freedom. How lately did its advocates, with impious boldness, maintain it as God's own, to be venerated and cherished as 2 Mr. Wood.

1 Mr. Cox.

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