Excerpt from Speech of Hon. J. M. Howard, of Michigan, on the Confiscation of Property: Delivered in the Senate of the United States, April 18, 1862 Without justifying the excesses inseparable from the struggle, we are not surprised at, nay, we cannot but admire the spirit of steady defiance and whole-souled tion of the patriots to their principles, when, with leaguering armies of foreigners. Upon their borders, and the fires of civil strife raging in their midst, they proclaimed; war to the castle, peace to the cottage. It showed that they were conscious that; they were struggling in the interest of liberty, and that courage, a courage that defies all the assaults and all the enticements of power, is, after all, the only safe, guard for its protection and preservation. A wasteful and corrupt court had bankrupted the public treasury. The nobles, whose estates had contributed so little to the public burdens, were fugitives abroad, conspiring with the public enemies for the-overthrow of liberty and the restoration of the old tyranny. The estates of the church, comprising about one-eighth of the lands, had never contributed a farthing to the public necessities, and most. Of a their occupants were openly disloyal to the republic, giving aid and comfort ta the-roy alist conspirators at home, and corresponding with the enemy abroad. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.