in our
ears. None of the series of acts in this beneficent legislation of
Congress, none of the proclamations of the Executive, none of these
military orders, protecting rights secured by law, will ever be
revoked or amended by the voice of the American people. There is now

"'No slave beneath that starry flag,
The emblem of the free.'

"By the will of the nation freedom and free institutions for all,
chains and fetters for none, are forever incorporated in the
fundamental law of regenerated and united America. Slave codes and
auction blocks, chains and fetters and blood-hounds, are things of the
past, and the chattel stands forth a man, with the rights and the
powers of the freemen. For the better security of these new-born civil
rights we are now about to pass the greatest and the grandest act in
this series of acts that have emancipated a race and disinthralled a
nation. It will pass, it will go upon the statute-book of the republic
by the voice of the American people, and there it will remain. From
the verdict of Congress in favor of this great measure, no appeal will
ever be entertained by the people of the United States."

Mr. Cowan spoke again, and denounced the section of the bill which
provided for its enforcement by the military. He said: "There it is;
words can not make it plainer; reason can not elucidate it; no
language can strengthen it or weaken it, one way or the other. There
is the question whether a military man, educated in a military school,
accustomed to supreme command, unaccustomed to the administration of
civil law among a free people, is to be intrusted with these appellate
jurisdiction over the courts of the country; whether he can in any
way, whether he ought in any way, to be intrusted with such a power.
I, for my part, will never agree to it; and I should feel myself
recreant to every duty that I owed to myself, to my country, to my
country's history, and I may say to the race which has been for
hundreds and thousands of years endeavoring to attain to something
like constitutional liberty, if I did not resist this and all similar
projects."

Mr. Trumbull answered some objections to the bill. "The Senator from
Indiana [Mr. Hendricks] objects to the bill because he says that the
same provisions which were enacted in the old Fugitive Slave Law are
incorporated into this, and that it has been heralded to the country
that it was a great achievement to do this; and he insists that if