tionary spirits engendered by the inordinate accumulation of real estate in the hands of an oligarchy, even without the aggravating evils of slavery.

Speculators.

The destruction of slavery in the Southern States will not remove these evils, so unavoidable, yet so deplorable. Negroes and poor whites hired to labor on large plantations will suffer as severely from their employers as from slaveholding masters. Following the army, like crows after the battles, speculators are going south to purchase farms in the new Eldorado. They will have, to some extent, the control of negroes found there, even though they may hire laborers. They will prove a curse to the country and a curse to the negroes. Men of grasping avarice, who have no interest in protecting the life or health of their employés, will be far more unrelenting than slave-owners who have an interest in preserving what they claim as property. Experience in Tennessee and other States has already demonstrated that the negroes suffer more under lessees, who are determined to get rich in a hurry by raising cotton, than they formerly suffered from their selfish masters. It is shocking to learn that Union men, as speculators, are allowed to drive their laborers to unwonted activity in the field, and yet to withhold from them fair wages. To deprive this hard-hearted class of men of the temptation of buying great estates for the purpose of levying black mail upon the first earnings of freedmen, it is only necessary to require the lands to be leased or sold in small sections, and to actual settlers.

Other Reasons why the Land should be subdivided into small Sections.

There is but one way of recalling the common people of the South, who are non-slaveholders, to a hearty and honest support of the Union; and that is, by making the population of all parts of the country homogeneous. Small farms, free labor, diversity of occupations, general education, northern institutions, republican and not aristocratic ideas of the respectability of honest industry, the substitution of cheerful and hopeful productive labor in place of listless southern indolence, the thrift of profitable energy instead of the wasteful extravagance of unpaid toil, the exchange of the slave-driver's lash for the spur of self-interest, and of the slave-pen for the school-house, will produce, in a few years, a revolution more wonderful than all the hard-fought battles of this civil war.

The Lesson of History that the Restoration of the Union will be one of the Victories of Peace.

History records in all ages the same lesson. The first conquest is of arms; the last is that of arts. The triple wall of slavery, rebellion, and treason has, until now, kept out from the Southern States the rising tide of knowledge and of progress. Its swelling waters, long baffled, have at

last broken through and over the dikes, and its crested waves, sparkling with phosphorescent light, are now dashing southward, sweeping away, in their irresistible movement, the ancient landmarks of barbarism and crime. When these fertilizing waters, having once deluged the land, shall have dried up, the hills and valleys of the South, purified and purged of all the guilt of the past, clothed with a new and richer verdure, will lift up their voices in thanksgiving to the Author of all good, who has granted to them, amidst the agonies of civil war, a new birth and a glorious transfiguration. Then the people of the South and the people of the North will again become one people, united in interests, in pursuits, in intelligence, in religion, and in patriotic devotion to their common country. Whatever may contribute to that result will be sanctioned by Christians and by statesmen.

The Missionaries of Liberty.

If soldiers who have fought for the flag on many a Southern battle-field; if emigrants, who bear with them a love of liberty, made more intense by the oppression of foreign tyrants; if Northern farmers, manufacturers, and merchants breď in the school of freedom, shall seek their homes in Southern States, as they doubtless will, encouraged and protected by manly legislation of Congress, the seed of liberty will by them be sown broadcast over the South. The institutions of the North will be established by every emigrant and every soldier wherever he plants his hearth-stone. Slavery being once abolished, there will be no backward movement in civilization ; free labor, having a fair field, is sure to win.

Small Farms are Pledges of the Perpetuity of the Union.

If the southern lands which shall belong to the United States be divided into small farms, and owned by a large number of proprietors, every one of them will hold his homestead under title from the United States. Each proprietor will thus become bound to maintain the government. His homestead will be pledged by bond and mortgage to perpetuate the Union. Every farm will be Union stock. It will be a guarantee of the credit and good faith of the country. It will secure in the South all the benefits of the credit mobilier, or of the circulation of governmental currency. The larger the number of persons owning the same amount of land, the stronger is the government in the number of its indorsers. Such, then, are some of the reasons why the lands of the United States in the rebellious districts should be subdivided into small homesteads.

What may be done with Homesteads.

These lands, thus subdivided, are wanted for four important objects. 1. For bounties to soldiers who have been in active service, and to the widows or heirs of those who have perished therein.

2. For homesteads for persons, of whatever color, who, while the war continues, or after it is over, may be found resident thereon.

3. For homesteads for those who shall emigrate southward.

4. These lands, not wanted for bounties or for homesteads, or the proceeds thereof, should be pledged for and applied to the extinction of the war debt.

Property abandoned by or taken from those who instigated the war should be appropriated to pay its expenses.

Freedom from Slaves, and Equalization of National Taxes.

If the issue be put to the people, Shall the South retain slavery and the North pay nearly all the taxes, or shall the South give up slavery and the North pay its just share of the taxes? there can be no doubt about the verdict.

A Principle of Political Economy.

To abolish slavery and cut up the lands of those slaveholders who will not accept the amnesty, and to distribute them as above suggested, would benefit the South even more than the North. For in a few years, the productiveness of the lands would be enormously increased by reason of improvements in agriculture, and by the conversion of eight millions of southern white men into producers, who are now only consumers of the products of the labor of four millions of slaves. To add such a vast source of wealth as this, will do more to develop and increase our wealth and our resources than the discovery of hundreds of mines of silver or of gold. This result of converting consumers into producers, interested in the perpetuity of our government, elevated in civilization, and with feelings so changed as to make them loyal citizens, is to be accomplished only by introducing among them northern improvements, northern institutions, and northern men to put them in practice. This end can be accomplished only by so managing the lands of the South as to render these great movements practicable.

Seizure of Lands. Bureau of Industry. Land Office System.

The first step in this direction is to seize the lands, and to acquire title as rapidly as possible.

The second step is, to place them in charge of proper persons, under the authority of the United States. (This is to be provided for by the bill for an Emancipation Bureau.)

The third step is to have the land system extended over these districts. For without this precaution, there will be disputes as to proprietorship; disputes as to boundary; disputes as to titles of traitors and their agents; claims for indemnity; disputes as to the application of the Amnesty Proclamation; and an interminable train of difficulties.

The Land System.

By applying to the southern plantations the land system, the titles can be given and guaranteed directly by the United States. These titles will be

reliable, and held sacred. The security of title will enhance the value of the lands for lease or for sale; and the government can, through its land officer, keep a correct account of all that is done with its property, and account for the proceeds thereof, and keep a register of loyal and disloyal men. If general laws are made, regulating the use or appropriation of such lands, these laws can be best carried into effect by the Land Office, and its surveys will be conclusive, both as to location of lots, and its grants or warrants may be made conclusive as to validity of title. By regulations of the Land Office, speculators can be kept off, settlers, soldiers, and emigrants can be protected most effectually. Considering all these things, it seems advisable that the land system of the United States should be extended to all such estates as vest in the United States as rapidly as possible. The disposition of these lands may be placed in the control of the chief of the Emancipation or Industrial Bureau. And it is desirable that lands of great value should not be sold, as they now are, for nominal prices, but that Congress should so legislate that these estates may be held for the benefit of the United States, or for such uses as they may be applied to hereafter by law.* I am, Sir, very respectfully,

WILLIAM WHITING,

Solicitor of the War Department.

[No. 12. See page 20.]

LAWS FOR RAISING AND ORGANIZING MILITARY FORCES.

“The United States may require all Subjects to do Military Duty.” The manner in which this power has been used by the government may be seen by reference to the acts of Congress under which the military forces of the United States have been authorized to be called into service since the commencement of our civil war. Soon after the rebellion broke out, the President, by virtue of the power conferred upon him in the act of Congress approved February 28, 1795, called forth the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of seventy-five thousand men, by proclamation dated April 15, 1861. On the 3d day of May, 1861, under the provisions of the same statute, he called into the service of the United States forty-two thousand and thirty-four state militia as volunteers, and directed an increase of the regular army to the extent of twenty-two thousand seven hundred and fourteen officers and men. By the act of July 22, 1861, the President was authorized to accept volunteers, not exceeding five hundred thousand men, and by the act of July 25, 1861, Chap. 17, he was further authorized to receive any number, not exceeding five hundred thousand men, to be organized according to the preceding act, and to be mustered in for

* How far the policy recommended in this letter has been approved by Congress may be seen by examination of the Freedmen's Bureau Act of July 16, 1866, Chap. 200.

during the war." No volunteers have been received under this law. The act of July 29, 1861, Chap. 25, authorized the President to call forth the militia of any or of all the States, and to employ such part of them as he should deem necessary; and it further provided "that the militia so called into the service of the United States shall be subject to the same rules and articles of war as the troops of the United States, &c., and that their service shall not extend beyond sixty days after the commencement of the then next session of Congress, unless, &c., and that the militia so called into the service shall be entitled to the same pay, &c. as the regular army. The President was authorized, by act of July 31, 1861, in accepting the services of volunteers under the act of July 22, 1861, to accept the same without previous proclamation, and in such numbers from any state, as, in his discretion, the public service should require.

Although the right claimed in this essay, on behalf of the government, to call upon all its subjects, whether white or black, bond or free, to do military duty, was unquestionable, yet, in fact, colored men were at that time excluded by law from the regular army and from the militia of the States.

To understand the operation of the statutes by which colored men and slaves were, until 1862, prevented from belonging to the regular army, the reader should observe, that the act of April 24, 1816 (Chap. 69 section 9), provides "that the regulations [of the army] in force before the reduction of the army be recognized so far as the same shall be found applicable to the service; subject, however, to such alterations as the Secretary of War may adopt, with the approbation of the President.” "Under this authority" (says Attorney General Cushing in his opinion dated April 5, 1853) “ it is that the subsisting regulations for the army have legal effect." The army regulations have been repeatedly recognized by Congress, and never more frequently than during the recent rebellion. That they have the force of law the Supreme Court of the United States has several times decided. (See Gratiot, v. United States, 4 How. 117.)

On the 10th of August, 1861, new regulations for the army were approved and issued, and "ordered by the President of the United States to be strictly observed as the sole and standing authority upon the matters therein contained." Of these regulations as to the persons who could be enlisted in the army, No. 929 reads as follows:

Any free white male person above the age of eighteen and under the age of thirty-five, being at least five feet three inches high, effective, ablebodied, sober, free from disease, of good character and habits, and with a competent knowledge of the English language, may be enlisted," &c.

And this regulation was substantially the same as had been in force for many years previous to that time. It was not forbidden by any law of the United States, and it continued in force, beyond question, until July, 1862; and whether and to what extent it was then altered will be presently considered. Thus it is seen that by statute and by regulations of the War