January 16, 1864 — Hall of Representatives, Washington DC

The Amnesty Proclamation was a piece of Northern meanness. The government had no right to get down on its knees to the people who were still in arms and who rejected it in disgust.

The men of the South must be punished! South Carolina should be cut up into 20 acre lots and as many negroes settled on them as can be got there. Other States should be treated as territories to be admitted into the Union as States when ready to do so with free institutions.

As it is now no black is sure of his liberty at the close of the war. In the Border States no provision is made for emancipation. We want the wealth of the Border States developed, and slavery must be wiped out from them and the whole land.

[She closed her speech with an earnest appeal to the young men of the country to rush to the help of their brethren and fill the sad rents to be found in every brigade and every regiment.]

Source: Washington Independent, January 19, 1864.