. / HISTORY OF THE T I HIRTY-1N I NTH N C ONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. £- By William ft. (Barnes, A. /VL Author of "The Body Politic. ' LIBERTY, LOYALTY AND LAW. INDIANAPOLIS, I N D . : MACAULEY & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. 1867. •C Entered, according to A.c( of Congress, in the year 1867. by M Ai'Al'LKV dk COMPANY, In the Clerk'a Ofnce of the District Court of states, lor ihe l 1 of Indiana. STEREOTYPED AT THE FBAMiLIS 11 !•] ! IVKOB ■■■.ill. PREFACE THE history of the Thirty-ninth Congress is a sequel to that of the rebellion. This having been overthrown, it remained for Congress to administer upon its effects. It depended upon the decisions of Congress whether the expected results of our victories on the battle-held should be realized or lost. As the work of the Thirty-ninth Congress stands forth complete, it challenges the admiration of mankind. People naturally desire to know something more of the manner in which the rough material was shaped into order, and the workmanship by which the whole was " fitly joined together." It can not be said of this fabric of legislation that it went up without " the sound of the hammer." The rap of the gavel was often heard enforcing order or terminating the exuberant flow of forensic eloquence. The latter use of the hammer, however, pertained to the House of Representatives, and not to the Senate. The former body many years ago adopted the "Hour Rule" and the "Previous Question" for the due limitation of debate, while the latter place no restriction upon their enjoy- ment of the luxury of .speech, although, with some rare exceptions, they use it with moderation. Discussion is the process by which results in legislation are achieved, hence no history of legislation would be complete without presenting the progress of debate preparatory to the adoption of im- portant measures. The explanation of what our legislators did, fta detailed in the following pages, is found in the presentation of what they said. Debates, as presented in the following pages, are by necessity much abridged. No attempt has been made to give a summary or synopsis of speeches. That which seemed to be the most striking or characteristic passage in a speech has been given, in the exact words used by the orator. A thousand things said and done are, of course, omitted— many things good in themselves and of consequence to the nation. The (3) I PREFACE. -r following pages are principally occupied with those subjects which to the nation and importance to the race. When lings apparently trivial, it has been with a view lable the reader to form a more correct estimate of characters and circumstances. In forming his opinion of Congressional ability and character, I t will bear In mind that tho.se who say the tnosl are not always nosl useful legislators. Men from whom no quotation is made, and to whom no measure is attributed in the following ; may be among the foremost in watchfulness for their constituents, and faithfulness to the country. If ii should seem that one subject — the negro question — occupied t >o much of the time and attention of Congress, it must be borne in mind that this subject was thrust upon Congress and the country by the issue, of the rebellion, and must be definitely and finally settled before the country could be at rest. "Unsettled questions have no pity on the repose of mankind." No attempt lias been made to give a diary of Congress containing a detail of what was said and done from day to day in the Senate and the Bouse. There has always been some great topic under delation, forming an uninterrupted series of discussions and transaction. To present these in review is to give a history of the Thirty-ninth Congress, since they distinguish it from all its prede- »re, and make it historical. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I.— Opening Scenes. (Page 13-21.) Momentous Events of the Vacation — Opening of the Senate — Mr. Wade — Mr. Sumner — Mr. Wilson — Mr. Hakims — Edward MgPherson — As Clerk of the preceding Congress, he calls the House to order — Interruption of Roll-call by Mr. Matnard — Remarks by Mr. Brooks — His Colloquy with Mr. Stevens — Mr. Colfax elected Speaker — Ms Inaugural Address — The Test Oath. CHAPTER II. — Locations op the Members and Cast of the Committees. (Page 22-32.) Importance of surroundings — Members sometimes referred to by their seats — Senator Andrew Johnson — Seating of the Senators — Drawing in the House — The Senate Chamber as seen from the Gallery— D - tinguished Senators — The House of Representatites — Some prominent characters— Importance of Committees — Difficulty in their appoint- ment — Important Senate Committees — Committees of the House. CHAPTER III. — Formation op the Joint Committee on Ukconstruction. (Page 33-49.) Lack of Excitement — Cause — The Resolution — Dilatory Motions — Teas and Nays — PROPOSED Amendments in the Senate — Debate in the Sen- ate—Mr. Howard— Mr. Anthony — Mi;. Doolittle — Mr. Fessenden — Mr. Saulsbury— Mr. Hendricks Mr. Trumbull— Mr. Guthrie— Pas- sage OF the Resolution in the Senate — Yeas and Nays — Remakes of Mr. Stevens on the Amendment of the Senate — Concurrence of thk House — The Committee appointed. (5) 6 CONTENTS. CHAPTER [V. — Suffrage in the District of Columbia. Page 50-84.) |. i 5S TO 1 EG 51 ■ • FOB 1 HE DISTRICT lUIA — S Bill in d into the Hoi S eech by Mr. Wilson — Mr. Boyer— i : : .!.i —Mr. Kelly — Mr. Rogers — Mr Fabnsworth— Mr Davis — Mr Chanleb — Mr Bingham— Mr Grinnell — Mr Kasson— Mr Jtr- llan -Mr Thomas — Mr Darling — Mr Hale's Amendment Mr Thayer — Mr. Van Horn— Mr Clarke— Mr Johnson — Mr. Boutwell. ( HAPTER V.— The Freedmen. (Page 95-103.) \ oi the Freedmen— Committee in the House— Early Movb- ■ i it by the Senate in behalf of Freedmen — Senator Wilson's Bill — ■ n [0N pon IT — Mr. Cowan moves its reference — Mr. Rkverdy John- ITISES DELIBERATION— A QUESTION OF TIME WITH M K. SHERMAN — Mr. Tri A MORE EFFICIENT BILL — Ml:. SUMNER PRESENTS PROOF CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN THE SOUTH — Mlt. COWAN AND Mk. Stewart produce the President as a witness for the dkfkn.sk — Mr. wll n the testimony — "conservatism" — the hill absorbed in ISURES. CHAPTER VI.— The Freedmen's Bureau Bill in the Senate. (Page 104-137.) The Bill introduced \ni> referred to Judiciary Committee— Its provis- — Argument of Mr. Hendricks against it — Replj of Mr. Trumbull — Mp. Cowan's Amendment — Mr. Guthrie wishes to relieve Kentucky i i Tin. operation of the bill — Mr. Creswell desires that Maryi . roY the benefits of the bill — Mr. Cowan's Gratitude to God and 1NDSHIP FOR THE NEGRO— REMARKS n\ Mr WlLSON — " The SHORT I •iii speech" — Ykas and Nays— Insulting title. CHAPTER VII. -The Freedmen's Bureau Bill in the House I'm ;e I • 1ST.) The Hill Reported to thi House— Mr Eliot's Speech— History — Mr. D . .-. rm Segro— Mr. Garfield— The Idol broken— Mr Taylor i i Me Donnelly's Amendment Mr Kerr Mb Mar- on White Slavery— Mb Hubbard- Mb Moulton -osmoN prom Kentucky— Mr. Rittbb Mr. Rossbau's Threat— Mb Shanklin's i! m> Prospect— Mr Trimble's Appeal- Mb McKee in bxi ionai Kbntuokian Mr, Grinnkli on Kentucky— The Example of Russia — Mb Phelps — Mr Shell abaroer's Amendment Mr Ch.vnler — Ms, Sti dments -Mb Eliot closes ras Discussion- -P ieofthb Bn l— Yeas lnd N CONTENTS. 7 CHAPTER VIII.— The Senate and the Veto Message. (Page 158-187.) Mr. Trumbull on the Amendments of the House — Mi;. Guthrie exhibits feeling— Mr. Sherman's deliberate Conclusion— Mr. Henderson's sov- breion remedy— mr. trumbull on 1' ati. nt medicines — ml!. mcdougall a white man — Mr. Reverdy Johnson on the power to pass the Bill — Con- currence of the Hoi se — The Veto Message — Mr. Lank, of Kansas — His efforts for delay— Mr. Garrett Davis— Mr. Trumbull's reply to the President — The question taken — Yeas and Nays — Failure of passage. CHAPTER IX.— The Civil Rights Bill in the Senate. (Page 188-219.) Duty of Congress conseqi bnt upon the Abolition of Slavery — Civil Rights Bill introduced — Reference to Judiciary Committee- — Before the Sen- aT1: Speech by Mr. Trumbull — Mr. Saulsbury — Mr. Van Winkle — Mr. Cowan— Mr. Howard— Mk. Johnson— Mr. Davis— Conversations with Mr. Trumbull and Mr. Clark — Reply ok Mr. Johnson — Remarks by Mr. Morrill— Mr. Davis "wound up"— Mr. Uuthrie s Speech— Mr. Hen- dricks— Reply of Mr. Lane— Mr. Wilson — Mr. Trumbull's closing re- marks— Yeas and Nays on the passage of the Bill. CHAPTER X.— The Civil Rights Bill in the House of Representatives. (Page 220-244.) The Bill referred to the Judiciary Committee and reported hack — Speech by the Chairman of the Committee— Mr. Rogers — Mr. Cook — Mr. Thayer— Mr. Ki.dridge— Mr. Thornton— Mr, Windom— Mr. Shel- labarger— Mr. Broomall— Mr. Raymond — Mr. Delano — Mr. Kerr — Amendment by Mr. Bingham — His Speech — Reply by his Colleague — Discussion closed by Mr. Wilson — Yeas and Nays on the passage or the Bill — Mr. Le Blond's proposed title — Amendments of the House accepted by the Senate. CHAPTER XL— The Civil Rights Bill and the Veto. (Page 245-293.) Doubts as to the President's Decision — Suspense ended — The Veto Mes- sage— Mr. Trumbull's Answer— Mr. Reverdy Johnson defends the Message-Rejoinder— Remarks of Mr. Yates— Mr. Cowan appeals to the Country— Mr. Stewart shows how States may make the Law a Nullity — Mr. Wade — Mr. McDougall on Persian Mythology-— Mr. J. 11. Lane defends the President— Mr. Wade -The President's Col- lar — Mi:. Brown — Mr. Doolittle — Mr. Garrett Davis — Mr BUEY — Yeas and Nays in the Senate — Vote in the House — The Civil Rights Bill becomes a Law. 8 0NTEN1 CHAPTER XIL— The Second Freedmen's Bureau Bill BE( OM i - \ J, AW. P The Discovery op the Majority — The Senate Bill — The Hoi se Bill — Provisions — Passage of mi: B u.— Amendment ^nd Passage in the Senati -Committee of Conference -The Amendmi pkd The Bill as Passed — The Veto — The Proposition of a Democrat epted — ' l lder3hip — passage of the blli. over the ro — It Becomes a Law. CHAPTER XIII. — First Words on Reconstruction Page 307-323.) Responsibility of the Republican Party — Its Power and Position — Ini- tiatory Step — Mr. Stevens speaks for himself — Condition of the Ri Sta itutional Authority under which I should act — Estoppel — What Constitutes Congress — The First Duty — Basis of I resentation — Duty on Exports — Two important Principles— Mr. Ray- mond's Theory — Rebel States still in the Union :quences of the Radical Theory — Conditions to be required — 3i i S ivereignty — Rebel Debi — Prohibition of Slavery — Two Policies contrasted — Reply of Mr. Jenckes — Difference in Terms, not in Substance — Logic of the i SERVATIVES LEADS TO THE RESULTS OF THE RaDICAI - CHAPTER XIV.— The Basis of Representation in the Ho (Pa First work of the Joint Committee — The Joint Resolution propos Constii Amendment — Mr. Stevens' reasons i edy actu Pro d Discussion gommen< ibjeotioxs to the Bill by Mr. Rog- ers Defense by Mr. Conk ling — Two other Modes — How.'- gut Evade the Law— Not a Finality — Wisconsin and South Carolina — A . ■ bnt fi Female Si proposed — Orth on Indiana vnd Mas if the S n More Radical Ri esired — A l\ ' ITUCKIAN i.kai 'IFIED- < ', OM THE * M i PREMIUM FOR Treason -White Slavi ro vmend well-nigh exhausted — Ob- jections TO THE Si FFRAGE BASIS— "Race" AND " COLOR " AMBIGUOUS— CON- DITION of the Question Recommitted Final Pass CHAPTER XV.— The Basis of Represi m ition in the Senate. (Pa • ii The Joint Resoli hod goes to the Senate— Counter-proposition by Mr, Simm i; He Speaks Five Sours Mr Henderson's A ntt— Mr. Fi . -Mr, Henry S Lam. -Mb Johnson— Mr Henderson— Mr CONTENTS. 9 Clark's Historical Statements— Fred. Douglass' Memorial— Mb V liams— Mr. Hendricks — Mr. Chandler's "Blood-letting Letter" Proposition of Mk Yates — His Speech Mr. Buckalew against New England— Mr. Pomeroy— Mr. Sumner's second Speech -Mr. Doolittle Mr, Morrill — Mr. Fessenden meets Objections — Final Vote — The a mendment defeated. CHAPTER XVI. — Representation of the Southern States. (Page 417-433.) Concurrent Resolution — A "Venomous Fight" — Passage in the House — The Resolution in the Senate— "A Political Wrangle" deprecated— Importance ok the Question — "A Straw in a Storm" — Policy oi President — Conversation between two Senators — Mr. Nye's Advice to Rebels — " A Dangerous Power" — "Was Mr. Wade once a Seces- sionist?"— Garrett Davi<' Programme for the President — "Us yet Mischievous" — The Great Question .settled. CHAPTER XVII. — The Reconstruction Amendment in the House. (Page 431-1.51.) A Constitutional Amendment proposed and postponed — Proposition by Mk. Stewart — The Reconstruction Amendment — Death of its Pi cessor lamented — Opposition to the Disfranchisement of Rebels — " Unkepentent Thirty-three" — Nine-tenths reduced to One-twelfth — Advice to Congress — The Committee denounced— Democratic and Re- publican Policy compared — Authority without Power — A Variet, Opinions — An Earthquake predicted — 'I'm-; Joint Resolution passes the House. CHAPTER XVIII. — The Reconstruction Amendment in the Senate. (Page 452-455.) Difference between Discussions in the House lnd in the Senate — Mr. Si mner proposes to rust cone — Mr. Howard takes Charge of the Amend- ment — Substitutes proposed — The Republicans in Council — The franchising Clause stricken oft — Humorous Account ry Mr. Hende — The Pain and Penalties of not holding Office — A Senator's Piety appealed to — Howe vs. Doolittle — Marketable Principles — Praise of the President— Mr. McDocuall's Charity— Vote of the Senate— Con- currence in the House. 10 COX TEXTS. CHAPTER XIX. — Report of the Committee on Ri - eiuction. Page 166-172.) An important State Paper — Work of the Committee — Difficulty of ition— Theory or the President — Taxation and Representation — Disposition and doings of the Southern People — I LUSION OF THE < 0MM1TTEE — PRACTICAL ReCOMHENDATK CHAPTER XX. — Restoration of Tennessee. (Page 473-182.) sibling of the Tennessee Legislature — Ratification of the Constitu- tional Amendment — Restoration of Tennessee proposed in Congri The Government of 'I be nut Republican — Protest against the Preamble — Passage in the House — New Preamble proposed — The I' r's Opinion deprbi ited and disregarded — Passage in the Senate — The President's Approval and Protest — Admission of Tennessee Mem- — Mi:. Patters in'sC use. CHAPTER XXI.— Negro Suffrage. rage 483-501.) Review of the preceding action — Efforts of Mr, 5Tates for Unrestricted - ffrage — Davis's Amendment t<> Cuvier — The "Propitious Hour" — The Mayor's Remonstrance — Mr. Willey's Amendment — Mr. Cov Amemdment for Female Suffrage — Attempt to out-radical the I s — Opinions for and against Female Suffrage — Reading and Writ- . Qualification — Passage of the Bill — Objections of the Presi- - *ators on the Opinions of the People — The Suffrage Bill m - i I- v\v. CHAPTER XXII.— The Military Reconstruction Act. (Page 502-551.) !' i;. Mu. - — "Piratical ( not to be recog- nized — 'I'm Military Feature introduced — Mr. Schofield's Dog — The ( is; , I ! Mr. Hisi I Ionvers itk i suction Member —A Mi: i U R ..- -War Pri The"Blai Amendment" — Bin rHE House — In the -Proposition to Amend— Mr. McDoi iall i I Speech — Mr Doolittle pleads for the Life of the > — Mr Sherman's Amendmeni Passage in - jatb— D s and Non- rHE House— The Senate unyielding — Qualified I s . the House — The Veto — "The Funeral of the Nation" — 'i'ii \ S pplbmentary Legislation CONTENTS. 11 CHAPTER XXIII.— Other Important Acts. (Page 552-560.) Equalizing Bounties — The Army — The Department of Education — South- ern Bomesteads — The Bankrupt Law — The Tariff— Reduction of Taxes — Contracting the Currency — Issue of Three Per Cents. — Xebraska and Colorado — Tenure of Office. CHAPTER XXIV.— The President and Congress. (Page 561-507.) The President's treatment of the South — First Annual Message — Mr. Sumner's Criticism — The President triumphant — He damages his Cause — Humor of Mr Stevens — Vetoes overridden — The Question submitted to the People — Their Verdict — Summary of Vetoes — Impeachment — Charges by Mr. Ashley — Report of the Committee. CHAPTER XXV.— Personal. (Page 568-576.) Contested Seats — Mr. Stockton votes for Himself — New Jersey's loss of two Senators — Losses of Vermont — Suicide of James H. Lane — Death in the House — General Scott — Lincoln's Eulogy and Statue — Mr. Sumner on Fine Arts in the Capitol — Censure of Mr. Chanler — Petition for the expulsion of Garret Davis — Grinnell assaulted by Rousseau — The Action of the House — Leader of the House. Biographical Sketches 577 INTRODUCTORY. By HON. S C H U Y L E R C < > L F A X , SPEAKER OF THE BOUSE OF REPRESENTAT] ri^HE CONGRESS that has just passed away has writl record that will be long remembered by the poor ami fri< whom it did not forget. Misrepresented or misunderstoo those who denounced it as enemies, harshly ami unjustly cised by some who should have been its friends, it prov more faithful to human progress and liberty than any ■■:' its p rs. The outraged and oppressed found in thes< halls champions and friends. Its key-note of poli to the down-trodden. It quailed not before the inighties ected not the obscurest. It lifted the slave, whom the ua had freed, to the full stature of manhood. I' j>'::;.vd OH • Statute-book the Civil Rights l.ill a- our nation's magna charta, grander than all the enactments that honor the American i and in all the region whose civil governments had been destr by a vanquished rebellion, it declared as a guarai to the weakesl that the freeman's hand should wield the man's ballol ; and that none bul loyal men should govern a which h.yal sacrifices had saved. Taught by inspiration that wine could not be safely put in old bottles, it proclaimed there could he no sai'e or loyal reconstruction on a foundation unrepentant treason and disloyalty. THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. CHAPTER I. OPENING SCENES. Momentous Events of the Vacation — Opening op the Senate — Mr. V.' vde — Mr Sumner — Mr. Wilson — Mr. Harris — Edward McPherson— -. As Clerk of the preceding Congress, he calls the House to order — Interruption of Roll-call by Mr. Maynard — Remarks by Mr. Brooks — His Colloquy with Mr. Stevens — Mr. Colfax elected Speaker — His I-, u .rat. Address — The Test Oath. THE Thirty-ninth Congress of the United States, convened in the Capitol at Washington on the fourth of December, l^<> r >. Since the adjournment of the Thirty-eighth Con- 3S, events of the greatest moment had transpired — events which invested its successor with responsibilities unparalleled in the history of any preceding legislative body. Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States, lead been slain by the hand of the assassin. The crime had filled the land with horror. The loss of its illustrious victim had veiled*the nation in unaffected grief. By this great national calamity, Andrew Johnson, who on the fourth of March preceding had taken his seat simply to ; -idc over the deliberations of the Senate, became President of the United States. Meanwhile the civil war, which had been waged with such terrible violence and bloodshed for four years preceding, came to a sudden termination. The rebel armies, under Generals Lee and Johnston, had surrendered to the victorious soldiers (13) 14 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. of the United States, who in their generosity had granted to the vanquished terms so mild and easy as to excite universal surprise. Jefferson Davis, Alexander II. Stevens, and some ot leaders in the rebellion, had been captured and held for a ti State prisoners; hut, at length, all save the " President of i Confederate States" were released on [parole, and finally | doned by the President. The President had issued a proclamation granting amnesty and pardon to "all who directly or indirectly participated in the rebellion, with restoration of all rights of property, • as to slaves," <>n condition of their subscribing to a prescribed oath. By the provisions of this proclamation, fourteen classes of persons were excepted from the benefits <>f the amn< st . offered therein, and yet ''any person belonging to the excepted classes" was encouraged to make special application to Presidents for pardon, to whom clemency, it was declared, won 1 " be liberally extended." In compliance with this invitati multitudes had obtained certificates of pardon from the Presi- dent, some of whom were at once elected by the Southern peoj e, to represent them, as Senators and Representatives, in the Thirty- ninth ( Jongress. The President had further carried on the work of reconstruc- tion by appointing Provisional Governors for many of the States lately in rebellion. He had recognized and entered into com- munication with the Legislatures of the-" States, prescribing certain terms on which they might secure representation in Congress, and recognition of " all their rights under the Consti- tution." By these and many other events which had transpired -'.nee expiration of the preceding Congress, the leg taining to reconstruction had become a work of vast complexity, involv- ing principles more profound, and questions more difficult, than ever before presented for the consideration and solution of ui« a assembled in a legislative capacity. At twelve o'clock on the day designated in \}\v ('onstitu. for the meeting of Congress, the Senate assembled, and was called to order by Hon. Lafayette S. Foster, President pro tempi •. Senators from twenty-live State- were in their seats, and answered to their names. Rev. E. II. Cray, Chaplain of the Senate, in- OPENING SCENES. 15 voked the blessing of Almighty Cod upon Congress, and prayed "that all their deliberations and enactments might be such as to secure the Divine approval, and insure the unanimous acquies- cence of the people, and command the respect of the nation-: of the earth." Soon after the preliminary formalities of opening, the Senate had transpired, Benjamin F. Wade, Senator from Ohio, inaugu- rated the labors of the Thirty-ninth Congress, and significantly foreshadowed one of its most memorable acts by introducing "a bill to regulate the elective franchise in the District of Columbia." The Senate signified its willingness to enter at once upon active duty by giving unanimous consent to Mr. Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts, to introduce a number of important bills. The measures thus brought before the Senate were clearly indicative of the line of policy which Congress would pursue. Tin' bills introduced were designed " to carry out the principles of a re- publican form of government in the District of Columbia ;" " to present an oath to maintain a republican form of government in the rebel States;" "to enforce the amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery;" "to enforce the guarantee of a republican form of government in certain States where governments have been usurped or overthrown." Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, was not behind his distin- guished colleague in his readiness to enter upon the most laborious legislation of the session. He introduced "a bill to maintain the freedom of the inhabitants in the States declared in insurrection by the proclamation of the President on the first of July, 1862." Senator Harris, of New York, long known as one of the ablest jurists of his State, and recently an eminent member of the S« n- ate's Judiciary Committee, directed attention to his favorite field of legislative labor by introducing "a bill to reorganize the Judiciary of the United States." While the Senate was thus actively entering upon the labors of the session, a somewhat different scene was transpiring in tie other end of the Capitol. Long before the hour for the assembling of Congress, the halls, the galleries, and corridors of the House of Representatives were thronged with such crowds as had never before been seen at the opening of a session. The absorbing interest felt throughout the entire country in the great questions to be decided by Congress THE THIRTY-.YINTH COXGh !•- to the ( ' every qu the Union. Eligible jio.-iti.pn~. usually held in r rain privileged or official persons, and ran mpied by a spectator, ow filled to their utmost capacity. The Diplomatic Gal- i by many unskilled in the mysteries of diplo- Reporters' Gallery held many listeners and loo who had no connection with newspapers, save i ders. was 1 1 « - 1 « 1 not only by the "members," who made the hill vocal with their greetings and congratulations, bul by a I of pages, office-seekers, office-holders, and unambitious citizen-;, who thronged over the new carpet and among the desks The hour having arrived for the assembling of < Edward McPherson, Clerk of the last House of Representatives, brought down the gavel on the Speaker's desk, and ••died the House to order. The members found their seats, and the crowd surged back up the aisles, and stood in a compact mass in the rear of the las! row of desks. ward McPherson, who at that moment occupied the most prominent and responsible place in the nation, had come to his tion through a scries of steps, which afforded the country an opportunity of knowing his material and capacity. A graduate of Pennsylvania College in 1848, editor, author, twice a Con- sman, and Clerk of the House of Representatives in the Thirty-eighth Congress, he had given evidence that he was reliable. Having shown himself a thoroughly conscientious man in the performance of all his public duties, the great intei of the nation were safe in his hands. The country had been greatly concerned to know how the Clerk would make up the Roll of the House, and whether the mime- of members elect from the late rebellious States would be called :it the opening of i! - -ion. It" this should be done, the fir-f step would be gained by the Representatives of those State- toward holding seats in Congress to which the majority at the North considered them not entitled. It had even been intimate 1 that the color of constitutionality which they would gain from recognition by the Clerk would he used to justify an rtion of their claim- by force. What the Clerk would di of the rolls and presiding officer of the House, was nol in doil The Clerk proceedi I all the roll of Representatives eh OPENING SCENES. 17 while the subordinates at the desk took note of the responses. He called the names of Congressmen from the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and so forth, in a certain order which had been customary time immemorial in naming the States. In this order Tennessee had place after Kentucky and before Indiana. When the name of the last Representative from Kentucky had been called, the decisive moment arrived. The delegation from Tennessee were on the floor, ready to answer to their names. The Clerk passed over Tennessee and went direct to Indiana. As soon as the first member from Indiana had responded, there arose a tall, black- haired, dark-faced figure, that every body recognized as Horace Maynard, of Tennessee. Me shook his certificate of election at the Clerk, and began to speak, but the gavel came down with a sharp rap. and a firm, decided voice was heard from the desk. "The Clerk declines to have any interruption during the call of the roll." The roll-call then proceeded without further inter- ference to the end. When, at last, the Clerk had finished his list of Representatives and Territorial Delegates. Mr. Maynard once more arose. "The Clerk can not be interrupted while ascertaining whether a quorum is present/' says the presiding officer. The count of the assistants having been completed, the Clerk announced, "One hundred and seventy-six members hav- ing answered to their names, a quorum is present." Mr. Morrill immediately moved that the House proceed to the election of S|>eaker. "Before that motion is put," said Mr. Maynard. again arising. The Clerk was ready for the emergency, and before Mr. Maynard could complete his sentence, he uttered the imperative and conclusive words, "The Clerk can not recognize as entitled to the floor any gentleman whose name is not on this roll." A buzz of approbation greeted the discreet riding of the Clerk. The difficult point was passed, and the whole subject of the admission of Southern Representatives was handed over intact, to be deliberately considered after the House should be fully organized for business. Mr. Morrill, in moving to proceed to the election of a Speaker, had forgotten or neglected to demand the previous question, and thus cut off debate. Mr. James Brooks, most plausible in address, and most ready in talk on the side of the minority, saw the point left unguarded by his opponents, and resolved to enter. Born in 2 18 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. Maine, now a citizen of New York, and editor of the " Expr< as," Mr. Brooks was in Congress for the fourth time a champion of uIkh he deemed the rights of the South, and not in accordance with the prevailing sentiments in hi- native and adopted Stati -. Mr. Brooks obtained the floor, and desired to amend the motion. He thought the mil should be completed before pro- ceeding tn the election of Speaker. "I trust/' said he, -that we shall nut proceed in any revolutionary, any step like that, without at least hearing from the honorable gentleman from Tenness* It' Tennessee is not in the Union, by what right does the Presi- dent of the United States usurp his place in the White House when an alien and a foreigner, and not from a State in the Union?" At this stage, a man of mark — five times a Representative in Congress, hut now twelve years away from the capital and a new member — lohn Wentworth, of Chicago — elevated his tall and massive form, and with a stentorian voice called Mr. Brooks to order. The Clerk having fairly decided that gentleman entitled to the floor on the question of proceeding to the election of a Speaker, Mr. Wentworth sat down, and Mr. Brooks in resuming his remarks improved his chance to administer rebuke in a man- ner which provoked some mirth. " When the honorable gentle- man from Illinois i s better acquainted with me in this House," said Mr. Brooks, "he will learn that I always proceed in order, and never deviate from the rules." Mr. Brooks then returned to his championship of Mr. Maynard: " If he is not a loyal man, and is not from a State in this Union, what man, then, is loyal? In the darkest and most doubtful period of the war, when an ex- ile from his own State, 1 heard his eloquent voice on the banks of the St. Lawrence arousing the people of my own State to dis- charge their duties to the country." Mr. Brooks joined Virginia with Tennessee, and asked the Clerk to give his reasons tor excluding the nam.- of Representa- tives from these Stat.- from the roll. The Clerk replied that he had acted in accordance with his views of duty, and was willing to let the record Btand ; it' it was the desire of the Eouse to have his reasons, he would give them. •• It is not necessary," said Thaddeus Stevens; " we know all." " I know," replied Mr. Brooks, "that it is known to all in one quarter, but that it is not known to many in other quarters in OPEXIXG SCENES. 19 this House, why this exclusion has been made. I should know but little, if I had not the record before me of the resolution adopted by the Republican majority of this House, that Tennes- see, Louisiana, and Virginia were to be excluded, and excluded without debate. Why without debate? Are gentlemen afraid to face debate? Are their reasons of such a character that they dare not present them to the country, and have to resort to the extra- ordinary step of sideway legislation, in a private caucus, to enact a joint resolution to be forced upon this House without debute, confirming that there are no reasons whatever to support this position except their absolute power, and authority, and control over this House? If the gentleman from Pennsylvania would but inform me at what period he intends to press this resolution, I would be happy to be informed." " I propose to present it at the proper time," was the response of Mr. Stevens, provoking laughter and applause. Mr. Brooks replied: "Tallyrand said that language was given to man to conceal ideas, and we all know the gentleman's ingenu- ity in the use of language. The proper time ! When will that be?" Mr. Brooks then proceeded at some length to answer this question. He supposed the proper time would be as soon as the House was organized, and before the President's message could be heard and considered, that the action of the House might silence the Executive, and nullify the exposition which he might make, and become a quasi condemnation of the action of the President of the United States. Mr. Brooks was at length ready to close, and sought to yield the floor to a Democratic member. The Republicans, however, were ready to meet the emergency, and objected to the floor being yielded in such a way as would cause delay without furthering the business of organizing the House. Points of order were raised, and efforts made to entangle the Clerk, but in vain. His rulings were prompt, decisive, and effectual. The moment a Re- publican fairly held the floor, the previous question was moved, the initial contest was over, and the House proceeded to elect a Speaker. A stoop-shouldered, studious-looking gentleman, now for the sixth successive term a member of Congress — Justin S. Morrill, of Maine — arose and nominated Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana On the other side of the house, a gentleman from Xew York QO THE THIRTY- XTXTR COXGRESS portly in lii- person, now entering on his second Congressional term — Charles II. Winfield — nominated Jami ! s, of ft York. Four members took their seats behind the Clerk to a * as tellers. 'I he responses were at length all given, and tin- num- bers noted. Mr. Morrill, one of the tellers, announced the re- sult — "Mr. Colfax, one hundred and thirty-nine: Mr. Brooks, thirty-six." The Clerk formally announced the result, and pped aside; his work as presiding officer of the Thirty-ninth < longress \\ as at an end. In the place thus made vacant appeared the man l>nt a moment before elected to the position by the largest political majority ever given to a Speaker of the House. A well-proportioned jure <>t" medium size, a j tlcti-i n _i r »untenance often radiant with smiles, a style <»t" movement quick and restless, yet calm and self- possessed, were characteristic of him upon whom all eyes we turned. In the past a printer ami editor in Indiana, now in Congress for the sixth term, ami elected Speaker the second time, v > huyi.ee (oi.i'ax -fond i.i take the oath of office, and ent upon the discharge of most difficult ami responsible duties. II -aid : "Gentlemen of the House of Representatives: The reassem- bling of Congress, marking a- it does the procession of our na- tional history, i- always regarded with interest by the people for whom it i- to legislate. But it i- not unsafe to say that million- more than ever before, North, South, East, and West, are looking to the Congress which opens its session to-day with an earnest- ness and solicitude nnequaled on similar occasions in the pas The Thirty-eighth Congress closed its constitutional existcn with the storm-cloud of war still lowering over us, and after nine months' absence, Cong > -- resumes it- legislative authority in th< - council halls, rejoicing that from shore to shore in our land there i- peaee. " It- duties are as obvious as the *uu's pathway in the heaven-. Representing in its two branches the State- and the people, it- h'rst and highest obligation is to guarantee to every State a repub- lican form of government. The rebellion having overthrown constitutional State governments in manv State-, it i- yours to mature and enact legislation which, with the concurrence of the ! ecutive, shall establish them anew on such a basis of enduring justice as will guarantee all vy ±\\\'r'j.\\\wi\< to the people, OPENING SCENES. 21 and afford what our Magna Charta, the Declaration of Indepen- dence, proclaims is the chief object of government — protection to all men in their inalienable rights. The world should witness, in this great work, the most inflexible fidelity, the most earnest de- votion to the principles of liberty and humanity, the truest patri- otism and the wisest statesmanship. " Heroic men, by hundred- of thousands, have died that the Republic might live. The emblems of mourning have darkened White House and cabin alike; but the tires of civil war have melted every fetter in the land, and proved the funeral pyre of slavery. It is for yon. Representatives, to do your work as faith- fully and as well as did the fearless saviors of the Union in their more dangerous arena of duty. Then we may hope to sec the vacant and once abandoned seats around us gradually filling up, until this hall shall contain Representatives from every State and district; their hearts devoted to the Union tor which they are to legislate, jealous of its honor, proud of its glory, watchful of its rights, and hostile to its enemies. And the stars on our banner, that paled when the States they represented arrayed themselves in arms against the nation, will shine with a more brilliant light of loyalty than ever before." Mr. Colfax having finished his address, took the following oath, which stood as the most serious obstacle in the way of many elected to Congress from the Southern States: ■I 'I. solemnly swear that 1 have never voluntarily borne arm- against the United States since 1 have been a citizen thereof; that I have volunta- rily wiven no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto; that I have neither sought nor accepted hit at- tempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever, under any authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States; that I have not viehled a voluntary support to any pretended government, authority, power, or constitution within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto. And I do further swear that, to the best of my knowledge and ability, I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic: that I will hear true faith and allegiance to tin- same; that 1 ke this obligation freely, without any menial reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well ami faithfully discharge the duties f tie' oi ■ n which I am about to enter. So help me God! The subordinate officers were then elected, by resolution, and the House of Representatives being organized, was ready to entei upon its work. THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. CHAPTER IT. locations of the members and cast of the committi - Importance ok surroundings— Members bometimes referred t<> by theib seats — Sknathi; Andhkw Johnson — Seating of the Senators — Drawing in the House — The Senate-chamber as seen prom the Gallery — Dis- tinguished Senators — The House of Representatives— Some prominent characters — Importance of Committees — Difficulty in theib \ppoint- ment — Important Senate Committees— Committees of the House. THE localities and surroundings of men have an influence on their actions and opinions. A matter which, to the casual observer, seems so unimportant as the -election and arrange- ment of the seats of Senators and Representatives, has its influence upon the legislation of the country. Ever since parties have had an existence, it has been considered of vital moment that those of one political faith in a deliberative body should occupy, as nearly a- possible, the same locality. It i< sometimes of service to a reader, in attempting to under- stand the reported proceedings of Congress, to know the localities of the members. Each seat has a -on of history of it< own. and becomes in some way identified with it- occupant. Members arc frequently alluded to in connection with the .-eats they occupy. Sometimes it happens that, year- after a man ha- gone from Congress, it is convenient and suggestive to refer to him by his old place iii the chamber. A- an illustration. Mr. Trumbull, in his speech on the veto , . t ' the Civil Rights Bill, desiring to quote Andrew Johnson, Senator, against Andrew Johnson, Presi- dent, referred to "a speech delivered in this body by a Senator occupying, 1 think, the -eat now occupied aero— the chamber by my friend from Oregon (Mr. William-)." A necessary and important part of the adjustment of the LOCATIOXS OF THE MEMBERS. 23 machinery, at the opening of each Congress, is the selection of seats. As the Senators serve for six years, and many of them have been reelected more than once, there are comparatively few changes made at the opening of any Congress. The old members generally choose to retain their accustomed seats, and the small number that come in as new Senators choose among the vacant seats, as convenience or caprice may dictate. In the House of Representatives the formality of drawing for seats is necessary. That this may be conveniently and fairly done, at the appointed time all the members retire to the ante- chambers, leaving the seats all unoccupied. The Clerk draws at random from a receptacle containing the names of all the members, As the members are called, one by one, they go in and occupy such seats as they may choose. The unlucky member whose name last turns up has little room for choice, and must be content to spend his Congressional days far from the Speaker, on the remote circumference, or to the right or left extreme. There are in the Senate-chamber seventy seats, in three tiers of semi-circular arrangement. If all the old Southern States were represented by Senators on the floor, the seats would be more than full. As it was in the Thirty-ninth Congress, there were a number of vacant desks, all of them situated to the right and left of the presiding officer. In a division of political parties nearly equal, the main aisle from the southern entrance would be the separating line. As it was, the Republican Senators occupied not only the eastern half of the chamber, but many of them were seated on the other side, the comparatively few Democratic Senators sitting still further to the west. Seated in the gallery, the spectator has a favorable position to survey the grand historic scene which passes below. His eve is naturally first attracted to the chair which is constitutionally the seat of the second dignitary in the land — the Vice-President of the United States. That office, however, has no incumbent, since he who took oath a few months before to perform its duties was called to occupy a higher place, made vacant by a most atrocious crime. The event, however, cost the Senate little loss of dignity, since the chair is filled by a President pro tempore of great ability and excellence— Lafayette S. Foster, Senator from Connecticut. THE TI1II;T)--.YI.YT1I CONGRESS. The eye of the spectator naturally seeks oul Charles Sumner, who sits away on the outer tier of seats, toward the south-east norner of the chamber; and near him, on the left, are seen the late Governors, now Senators, Morgan and Yates, of New York and Illinois. Immediately in front of them, on the middle tier of seats, is an assemblage of old and distinguished Senators — Trumbull, Wilson, Wade, and Fessenden. To the right of the Vice-President's chair, and in the row of seats neares this desk, sits the venerable and learned lawyer, Reverdy Johnson, of Mary- land. Just in his rear sits the youthful Sprague, of Rhode Island, right is seen Sherman, of Ohio. To the rear of th< nators, in the outer segmenl of seats, sits, or perhaps stands, ( {arret! Davis, of Kentucky, the mosl garrulous of old men. eon- tinually oui of temper with the majority, yet all the time marked by whal he calls his -usual courtesy." To the left of Davis, beyond Nesmith, of Oregon, and the other and more silent Sen- ator from Kentucky, sits Saulsbury, of Delaware, unless he should l»e traversing the carpeted space in the rear of hi- -eat. like a sentinel of the Senate. Far different is the sight presented to the spectator who looks down from the galleries of the House of Representatives. The immense area below i- supplied with two hundred and fifty-tin seats, with desks arranged in semi-circular row.-, having a point in (V..nt of the Speaker's desk as a focus. On the right of the spectator, as he looks from the gallery in from of the Speaker. i- the Republican side of the House. But this prosperous organ- ization has -row u so rapidly since it- birth, ten years ago, that it has overstepped all old and traditional party limitation.-. < >nc- half of the House is not sufficient to afford its representatives adequate accommodations. Republican members have passed over the main aisle, and occupy half of the Democratic side, having pressed the thin rank- of their opponent- to the extreme left. A- the spectator -can- the House, his eye will re-t on Thad- deus Stevens, whose brown wig and Roman casl of countenance mark the veteran of the House. He sits in the right place Im- :i leader of the Republicans, aboul half-way hack from theSpcak- er's desk, on the diagonal line which divides the western side of the House, where he can readily catch the Speaker's eye. and be easily heard by all his friend-. Immediately in hi- rear is his LOCATIONS OF THE MEMBERS. 25 successor in the chairmanship of the Committee of Ways and Means— Mr. Morrill, of Vermont. To the right, across the aisle, is Elihu B. Washburn, of Illinois, the oldest member in contin- uous service in the House; and to his roar is Henry J. Ray- mond, of the Times. To the right, and partly in the rear of Mr. Stevens, are a number of noteworthy men: among them are General Schenck, General Garfield, and "Long John" Went- worth, of Chicago. Far around to the right, and much nearer the Speaker's desk, is seen a man distinguished in civil and mili- tary history, who once occupied the Speaker's chair — General Banks, of Massachusetts. In physical contrast with him. -its — in the adjoining desk, a tall, dark, bearded Californian — General John Bidwell, a new member of the House. On the opposite side of the House, among the Democrats, is the seat of John A. Bins-ham, who now returns to Congress after an absence of one term, whom his friends describe as the " best-natured and crossest- looking man in the House." James Brooks, most plausible and best-natured of Democrats, notwithstanding the inroads of the Republicans, sturdily keeps his seat near the main aisle. His .-eat, however, he is destined to lose before many months in favor of a contestant, who will occupy the other side of the chamber. In looking down upon so large an assemblage, a large part of which is so distant, the eye of the spectator will weary in the at- tempt to discover and recognize individuals, however familiar, amidst the busy throng. In preparing for the work of legislation, a matter of more im- portance than the arrangement of the seats is the cast of the committees. .Most of the labor of legislative bodies is done by committees. As it is impossible for any one Congressman to i" legislative enactment still nearer to its source, it will be found that the work of a committee takes a de- cided tinge from the character of its chairman. It consequently becomes a matter of greal interest to the coun- try, ai the opening of each < longress, to know who constitute the committees. One of the most arduous and responsible duties <>t' the Speaker of the House of Representatives is the selection of committees and filling their chairmanships. Fitness and special adaptation are supposed to constitute the rule by which choice is made. Many elements, however, enter into the work which are not a part of this philosophy. It is impossible that the presiding officer should know unerringly who is absolutely the fittest man for any position, and if he possessed such superhuman knowledge he would still be trammeled by long-established rules of precedence and promotion. There is often a regular gradation by which men arrive at positions which is not in direct ratio to their fitness for their places. Not withstanding all the errors which were unavoidable elements in the work, committees were never better constituted than those of the Thirty-ninth Congress. The Senate being comparatively small in numbers, and, more- over, by usage, doing most of the details of this business in cau- cus, the announcement of the committees in this body was made on Wednesday, the third day of the session. On the other hand, the size of the House, the large proportion of new ami unknown members appearing every term, the number and magnitude of the committees, and the fact that the duty of appointment devolved upon the Speaker, combined to render the reading out of commit- teemen in the latter body impossible before the following Monday, one week alter the assembling of Congress. Of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Charles Sum- ner was appoint! d chairman. 'I "his is a very important committee, being the direel channel of communication between the State De- partment and the Senate. It being the constitutional duty of the Senate to pass upon all treaties, and to decide upon qualifica- tions of all persons nominated by the Executive t<» represent the United State- in foreign countries, the labors of this committee arc arduous and responsible. The chairmanship of this committee was Idled by a Senator of mosl eminent fitness and ability. His THE CAST OF THE COMMITTEES. 27 literary culture, and attainments as a scholar, his general legal ability and familiarity with the laws of nations, his residence abroad for several years, and his long membership in the Senate, now of fourteen years' duration, all marked him as wisely chosen for his important position. On account of the immense National debt accumulated in the Avar, and the complication of the financial affairs of the nation, the Committee on Finance has an important bearing upon the interests of the country, unknown until recent years. William P. Fessenden was the Senator chosen chairman of this committee. I lis success in his private business, his appointment, in 1864, as the head of the Treasury Department, and his service in the Senate since 1853 as member of the Finance Committee, and since 1859 as its chairman, all indicated the propriety of his continu- ance in this position. Second on the list of this committee stood Senator Sherman, of Ohio, who has been described as " an fait on National Banks, fond of figures, and in love with finances." The Committee on Commerce was constituted with Senator Chandler, of Michigan, as its chairman. Himself most success- ful in commercial life, in which he had attained distinction b&fore coming to the Senate, and representing a State having a greater extent of coast and better facilities for commerce than any other inland community in the world, Senator Chandler was eminently suitable as head of the Committee on Commerce. His associates being selected from Maine, New York, Vermont, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Oregon, left unrepresented no important commercial interest in the nation. The Committee on Manufactures was headed by William Sprague, Senator from Rhode Island, a State having the largest capital invested, and persons employed in manufactures, in pro- portion to population, of any in the Union. Senator Sprague himself having been educated in the counting-room of a manu- facturing establishment, ami having control of one of the largest manufacturing interests in the country, was the appropriate per- son for such a position. The agricultural States of Ohio, Kansas, Maryland, Pennsyl- vania, and Kentucky furnished the members of the Committee on Agriculture, with Senator Sherman at its head. Of the Committee on the Judiciary, a Senator has given a description. In a speech delivered in the Senate, December 12, 28 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. I 365, Mr. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, said: "From it- very organi- zation the Senate designs to make that committee it- constitu- tional adviser — not that its opinions are to be conclusive or con- troling < • 1 1 the vote of any member of* this body, like the opinion of the bench of Judges in the EJouse of Lord-; but it- members are chosen in consideration of their high professional ability, their long i xperience, and well-known standing as jurists, in order that their report upon constitutional questions may be entitled to the highest consideration. And. sir, if you look into the organiza- tion of the Judiciary Committee appointed by the Senate at the present session; what is it? There is the Senator from Illinois, [Mr. Trumbull], for year- Judge of the Supreme Court <»i' that State before he entered this body, who. for ten year- and more, has been a faithful, laborious, distinguished member of that con> niittee. and for the last four year- its chairman. And then my honorable friend from New York [Mr. Harris], for twenty years before he came here known ami distinguished among the able jurists and Judges of that great State. And there is tin- honorable Senator from Vermont [Mr. Poland]. He has, it is true, just entered this body, hut his reputation as a jurist pre- ceded his coming, and he comas here to iill the place in this chamber, and i- pul upon this Judiciary Committee to iill the place of him of whom 1 will say, without disparagement to any, that he was the ablest jurist of us all— the late distinguu Senator from Vermont [Mr. Collamer]. And there i- the Sena- tor from New Hampshire [Mr. Clark], from the far East, and the Senator from Nevada [Mi-. Stewart], from th*' Pacific > and the Senator from Indiana [Mr. Hendricks], from the central region, each of whom stands eminent in the profession in the State which he represt ots, and all of whom are recognized here an the ablest jurists of this body." »uic of the great political questions destined to i the attention of the Thirty-ninth Congress invested the Committa on II,, District of Columbia with a national interest, although its duties pertained chiefly to the local concern- >f first importance, and it- chair- man has been considered leader of the House. Its duties, though of a somewhat miscellaneous character, relate chiefly to devising the ways and means of raising revenue, rim fact thai the Con- stitution provides that "all hills for raising revenue shall origi- nate in the House of Representatives/' gives the Committee of Ways and Means a sort of preeminence over all other commit- tees, whether of the Senate or the House. The work of the Committee of Ways and Means, as it ha 1 existed before the Thirty-ninth Congress, was, at the opening of this session, divided among three committees; one retaining the old name and still remaining the leading committee, a second on I propitiations, and a third on Banking and Currency. Of the new Committee of Ways and Means, Justin S. Morrill, <>f Vermont, was appointed chairman — a Representative often year.-' experience in the House, who had seen several years of service on the same committee. While his abilities and habit-, as a student and a thinker, well adapted him for the work of conducting; his committee bv wise deliberation to useful measures, yet they were not characteristics fitting him with readiest tact and most resolute will to "handle the House." Thaddeus Stevens, the old chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, was appointed the head of the new Committee on Appropriations. His vigilance and integrity admirably fitted him for this position, while his age made it desirable that he should be relieved of the arduous labor- of the Committee of Ways and Mean-. Of this committee he had been chairman in the two preceding Congresses, and had filled a large space in the public eye as leader of the House. His age— over seventy years — gave him the respect of members the majority of whom were born after he graduated at college— the more especially as these advanced years were not attended with any perceptible abatement of the intellectual vivacity or lire of youth. The evident honesty ami patriotism with which he advanced over prostrate theories and policies toward the great ends at which la- aimed, secured him multitudes of friends, while these same quali- ties contributed to make him many enemies. The timid became bold and the resolute were made stronger in seeing the bravery with which he maintained his principles. He had a habit of 30 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. going Btraight t<> the issue, and a rugged manner <>t' presenting his "i>ini<>i)-, coupled with a cool assurance, which, oi f his unfriendly critics once declared, "sometimes rose almost to the sublime." He alone, of all the members of the Pennsylvania Convention, in 1836, refused to sign the new State Constitution, because it robbed the negro of his vote. It was a fitting reward that he, in 1866, should stand in the United States House of Representatives, at the head of a majority of more than one hun- dred, declaring that the oppressed race should enjoy rights so long denied. The Committee y which this committee was cr< will be described in the following chapter. ON RECONSTRUCTION. 33 CHAPTER TIT. FORMATION OF THE JOINT COMMITTKE ON RK< 'ONSTItU< TION. Lack of Excitement — Cause — The Resoli thin — Dilatory Motions — Yeah and Nays — Proposed Amendments in the Senate — Debate in the Sen- ate — Mr. Howard — Mr. Anthony — Mr. Doolittle — M it. Fessenden — Mr. Saulsbury — Mr. Hendricks — Mr. Trumbull — Mr. Guthrie — Pas- sage of the Resolution in the Senate — Yeas and Nays — Remarks 01 Mr. Stevens on the Amendments of the Senate — Concurrence of the Souse — The Committee appointed. STXCE it was known throughout the country that members- elect from Tennessee and other States recently in rebellion would appear at Washington on the opening of the Thirty- ninth Congress, and demand recognition of their right to repre- sent their constituents, all eyes were turned to observe the action which would be taken on the subject. It was anticipated that the question would be sprung at once, and that a season of storm and excitement would ensue, unparalleled in the political history of the nation. Since the American people are exceedingly fond of excitements and sensations, the expectation of trouble in Con- gress drew immense numbers to its galleries on the first day of the session. Lovers of sensation were doomed to disappointment. Correspondents and reporters for the press, who were prepared to furnish for the newspapers descriptions of an opening of Congress "dangerously boisterous," were compelled to describe it as "ex- ceptionally quiet." The cause of this unexpected state of things was the fact that the majority had previously come to the wise conclusion thai il would not be well to pass upon the admission of Southern members in open session and amid the confusion of organization. As there was so much difference of opinion concerning the statu* of the communities recently in rebellion, and such a variety of considerations must be regarded in reaching wise conclusions, it 34 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. was deemed advisable that the whole -abject should be calmly and deliberately inv< ted by a select number of able and patriotic men from both Houses of Congress. Accordingly, on the first day of the session, soon after the House was organized, Mr. Thaddeus Stevens offered th<' follow- ing important Resolution: • 7. by the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress as- iled, that a joint committee of fifteen members sIkiII be appointed, nine of whom shall be members of the House, and six members of the Senate, who shall inquire into the condition of the States which formed the so-called Confederate States of America, and report whether they or any of them arc entitle 1 to be represented in either House of Congress, with leave tor at any time by Mil or otherwise; and until such report shall have made, and finally acted upon by Cong i member shall be received into either House from any of the said so-called Confederate States; and all papers relating to the representation of the said States shall !><■ referred t>> ■ committee without debate." Tn avoid the delay occasioned by a protracted debate, Mr. Ste- vens called the previous question. The minority perceived the impossibility of preventing tho final passage of the resolution, yet deemed it their duty to put it off as far as possible by their only available means — "dilatory motions." They first objected to the introduction of the resolution, under the rule that unani- mous consent must he given to permit a resolution to come before the House without notice given on a previous day. To meet this difficulty, Mr. Stevens moved to suspend the rule- to enable him to introduce the resolution. < )n this motion the yeas and nays were demanded. To suspend tho rule- under such circumstances required a two-thirds' vote, which was given — one hundred and twenty-nine voting for. and thirtv-five against the motion. The rules having been suspended, the resolution was regularly before the House. A motion was then mad< to lay the resolution on the table, and the yeas and nays demanded. Thirty-seven were in favor of the motion, and one hundred and thirty-three against it. Before a call tor the previous question is available to cut off debate, it must, by the rules of the House, he seconded by one- fifth of the members present. This having been done, the vote was taken by v. as and nays on the concurrent resolution sub- mitted by Mr. Stevens. One hundred and thirty-three voted in favor of the resolution, and thirty-six against it. while thirteen ON RECONSTRUCT j lu.Y. 35 were reported as "not voting." As this vote was on an impor- tant measure, and is significant as marking with considerable accuracy the political complexion of the House of Representa- tives, it should be given in detail. The following are the names of those who voted "Yea:" • Messrs. Alley, Allison, Ames, Anderson, Baker, Baldwin, Hanks, Barker, Baxter. Beaman, Benjamin, Bidwell, Bingham, Blow, Boutwell, Brandagee, Bromwell, Broomall, Buckland, Bundy, Reader W. (Mark, Sidney Clark. Cobb, Conkling, Cook, Cullom, Culver, Darling, Davis. Dawes. Defrees, De- lano, Deming, Dixon, Donnelly. Driggs, Dumont, Eckley, Eggleston, Eliot, Farnsworth, Ferry, Garfield, Crinnell, Griswold, Hale. Abner C. Harding, Hart, Hayes, Henderson, Higby, Hill, Holmes, Hooper, Hotchkiss, Asabel W. Hubbard, John H. Hubbard, Chester D. Hubbard, Demas Hubbard James R. Hubbell, Hulburd, James Humphrey. Ingersoll, Jenckes, Julian, Kasson, Kcllcy, Kelso, Ketchum, Kuykendall, Laflin, Latham, George V Lawrence, William Lawrence, Loan, Longyear, Lynch, Marston, Marvin, McClurg, Mclndoe, McKee, MeRuer, Mercur, Miller, Moorhead, Morrill, Monis. Moulton, Myers, Newell, O'Neill, Orthe, Paine, Patterson, Perham. Phelps, Pike, Pomeroy, Price, William H. Randall, Raymond. Alexander II Rice, John H. Rice, Rollins, Sawyer, Schenck, Scofield, Shellabarger, Smith, Spaulding, Starr, Stevens, Stillwell, Thayer, John L. Thomas, Trowbridge, Upson, Van Aernam, Burt Van Horn, Robert Van Horn, Ward, Warner. Elihu 15. Washburne, Welker, Wentworth, Whaley, Williams, James V Wilson, Windom, and Woodbridge. The following members voted " Nay :" Messrs. Ancona, Bergen, Boyer, Brooks, Chanler, Dawson, Denison, Eldridge, Pinck, Glossbrenner, Goodyear, Grider, Aaron Harding, Hogan, lames M. Humphrey, Johnson, Kerr, LeBlond. McCullough, Niblack, Nicholson, Noell, Radford, Samuel J. Randall, Ritter, Rogers, Ross, Shank- lin, Sitgreaves, Sfcrouse, Tabor, Taylor, Thornton, Trimble, Winficld, and Wright. The following are reported as "not voting:" Messrs. Deloa R. Ashley, James M. Ashley. Blaine, Farquhar, Harris, Edwin X. Hubbell, Jones. Marshall. Plants, Rousseau. Sloan, Francis Thomas, Yoorhers. and William 1>. Washburn. Thus the resolution passed the House. The immense size of this body required that, by stringent rule, debate should have limitation, and even sometimes be cut off altogether by the opera- tion of previous question. This arrangement enabled skillful and resolute leaders to earry through this measure within an hour's time, whereas, in the Senate, a body of less than one-third the 36 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS -ize. it passed after a delay of several days, and at the end discussion of considerable length. On the day following the passage of tin- resolution in the House of Representatives, it was read in the Senate Mr. John- son, of Maryland, objecting to its being considered on the day of it- reception, under a regulation of the Senate it was postponed. After tli*- lapse of a week, on Tuesday, December 1*2. the resolution was taken up for consideration in the Senate Mr. Anthony moved to amend the enacting clause so as t<> change it from a joint resolution to a concurred resolution, siuce, under its original shape, it would require the President's approval. This amendment having been made, Mr. Anthony moved to further amend the resolution l>y striking out all after the word "otherwise." The following are the words proposed to be stricken out : "And until Buch report slmll have been made and finally acted on by Congress, no member shall be received into either house from any of the said so-called Confederate States; and all papers relating to the representa- tion of said States shall be referred to the said committee without del Mr. Howard, of Michigan, preferred the resolution as it came from the House of Representatives. " li contains within itself a pledge on the part of the two houses, that until the report of this important committee shall have been presented, we will not re- admit any of the rebel States, cither by the recognition of their Senators or their Representatives. 1 think the country expects nothing less than this at our hand-. I think that portion of the loval people of the United States who have sacrificed so much of blood and treasure in the prosecution of the war, and who secured to us the signal victory which we have achieved over • the rebellion, have a right to at least this assurance at our hand-, that neither house of Congress will recognize a- State- any one of the rebel States until the event to which I have alluded. ■• Sir, what i- the presenl positiou ami status of the rebel States? In mv judgment they are simply conquered communities, subju- gated 1>\ the arms of the United State-; communities in which the right of self-government does nol now exist. Why".' Because they have been for the last tour years hostile, to the most surpris- ing unanimity hostile, to the authority of the 1'tnted States, and have, during that period, been waging a bloody war against that ON RECONSTRUCTION. 37 authority. They are simply conquered communities, and we hold them, as we know well, as the world knows to-day, not by their own tree will and consent as members of the Union, but solely by virtue of our military power, which is executed to that effect throughout the length and breadth of the rebel States. There is in those States no rightful authority, according to my view, at this time, but that of the United States; and every political act, every governmental act exercised within their limits, must necessarily be exercised and performed under the sanction and by the will of the conqueror. " In short, sir, they are not to-day loyal States ; their population are not willing to-day, if we are rightly informed, to perform peaceably, quietly, and efficiently the duties which pertain to the population of a State in the Union and of the Union ; and for one I can not consent to recognize them, even indirectly, as en- titled to be represented in either house of Congress at this time. The time has not yet come, in my judgment, to do this. I think that, under present circumstances, it is due to the country that we should give them the assurance that we will not thus hastily readmit to seats in the legislative bodies here the representatives of constituencies who are still hostile to the authority of the United States. I think that such constituencies are not entitled to be represented here." Mr. Anthony, of Rhode Island, said: "The amendment was proposed from no opposition to what I understand to be the purpose of the words stricken out. That purpose I understand to be that both houses shall act in concert in any measure-' which they may take for the reconstruction of the States lately in rebellion. I think that that object is eminently desirable, and not only that the two houses shall act in concert, but that Con- gress shall act in concert with the Executive; that all branches of the Government shall approach this great question in a spirit of comprehensive patriotism, with confidence in each other, with a conciliatory temper toward each other, and that each branch of the Government will be ready, if necessary, to concede something of their own views in order to meet the views of those who are equally charged with the responsibility of public affairs. "The words proposed to be stricken out refer to the joint committee of the two houses of Congress matters which the Con- stitution confides to each house separately. Each house is made, 77/A' THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. by the ( institution, the judge of the elections, retui -. ind quali- fications of its own members. "There is one other reason why I move this cndment, and thai i-. that the resolution provides that papers shall 1 ■ referred to this committee without debate. Tins is contrary to :! e prac- tice of the Senate The Ho; ' Reprcsentativi likI it necessary, for the orderlv transaction of it.- business, to pul limi- tations upon debate, hence the previous question and the hour rule; but the Senate has always resisted every proposition of tl kind, and submitted to any inconvenience rather than cheek fi discussion. Senators around me, who were here in the minority, felt that the right of debate was a very pre, amis one to them at that time, and. as it was not taken from them, they are not dis- posed to take it from the minority now. "The purpose of all that is stricken out ran be effected by the separate action of the two houses, if they shall so elect. The House of Representatives, having passed this resolution by a great vole, will undoubtedly adopt, in a separate resolution, what i- here stricken out ; and. except so far as relate- to the restriction upon debate, 1 shall, if this amendment l>e adopted and the reso- lution passed, offer a resolution substantially declaring it to be the opinion of the Senate that, until this committee reports — presuming that it will report in a reasonable time— no action should lie taken upon the representation of the States lately in rebellion." Mr. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, said: "All of these great ques- tions, concerning reconstruction, pacification, and restoration of civil government in the Southern Stated, representation in this body, or any thing which concern.- of Federal relation.- with the veral State-, ought to he referred to the ( lommittce on the Judi- ciary. Such has been the practice of this Government from the beginning:. < rreat questions of constitutional law. questions con- cerning the relation- of the I nion to the States and the Si tcs to the Union, and above all. and without any exception, all ques- tions relating t" representation in this body, to its membership, have always been referred to the Judiciary Committee. •• There i- oothing in the history of the Senate, there i- nothing in the constitution of this committee, which would send lip great constitutional questions foi advisement and isidcration to any other committee than the Committee on r ■ Judiciary. OjY MM '0. \ 'S TB rcno.Y. 39 To place their consideration in the hands of a committee which is beyond the control of the Senate, is to distrust ourselves; and to vole to send their consideration to any other committee, is equivalent to a vote of want of confidence in the Judiciary Com- mittee. "I object to this resolution, because, upon these great questions which are to go to the joint committee, the Senate does not stand upon an equality with the House. This resolution provides that, of the joint committee of fifteen, nine shall be appointed by the House of Representatives, six only by the Senate, giving to the House portion of the committee a majority of three. We all know that in joint committees the members vote, not as the representatives of the two houses, but per capita. The vote of a member of the committee from the House weighs precisely the same as the vote of a member of the committee from the Senate; SO that, to all intents and purposes, if we pass this concurrent resolution, which we can not repeal but by the concurrence of the other house, we place the consideration of these grave ques- tions in the hands of a committee which we can not control, and in which we have no equal voice. "Under the Constitution, upon all subjects of legislation but one, the two houses are equal and coordinate branches of Con- gress. That one relates to their representation in the bodies, to their membership, that which constitutes their existence, which is i ssential to their life and their independence. That is confided to each house, and to each house alone, to act for itself. It judges for itself upon the elections, returns, and qualifications of its members. It judges, it admit.-, it punishes, it expels. It can not share that responsibility with any other department of the Government. It can no more share it with the other house than it can share it with the Supreme Court or with the Presidi It is a matter over which its jurisdiction is exclusive of every other jurisdiction. It is a matter in which its decisions, right or wrong, are absolute and without appeal. In my opinion the Senate of the United States can not give to a committee beyond its control this question of the representation in this body, with- out a loss of its self-respect, its dignity, its independence; with- out an abandonment of its constitutional duty and a surrender of its constitutional powers. "There is another provision in this resolution, as it stands, 40 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. that we shall refer every paper to the committee without debate. Yes, sir, the Senate of the United States is to be led like a lamb to the slaughter, bound hand and foot, shorn of its constitutional power, and gagged, dumb, like the sheep brought to the block! I- this the condition to which the Senator from Michigan pro- poses to reduce the Senate of the United States by insisting upon such a provision as that contained in the resolution as it .nines from the House of Representatives ? "There is a -till graver objection to this resolution as it stands. The provision that ( until such report shall have been made and finally acted on by Congress, no member shall be received into either house from any of the so-called Confederate State-.' is a provision which, by law, excludes those eleven State- from their representation in the Union. Sir. pass that resolution as it stands, ami let it receive the .signature of the President, ami you have accomplished what the rebellion could not accomplish, what the sacrifice of half a million men could not accomplish in warring aeainst this Government — you have dissolved the Union by act of Congress. Sir, are we prepared to sanction that? I trust never. "The Senator from Michigan talks about the status of th States. He may very properly raise the question whether they have any Legislatures that are capable of electing Senators to this body. That is a question of fact to he considered; hut a- to whether they are States, and States still within the Union, not- withstanding their civil form of government has been overturned by the rebellion, and their Legislatures have been disorganized, that they are still State- in this Union is the most -acred truth and the dearest truth to every American heart, and it will be maintained by the American people against all opposition, come from what quarter it may. Sir, the flag that now floats on the tup of this Capitol bears thirty-six -tar.-. Ever) -tar representsa State in this 1 iiion. 1 a-k the Senator from Michigan, doe- that Hag, as it floats there, speak the nation'- truth to our people and to the world, or is it a hypocritical, flaunting lie? That flag has been home at the head of our conquering legions through the whole South, planted at Vicksburg, planted at Columbia, Savan- nah, Charleston, Sumter; the same old flag which came down before the rebellion at Sumter was raised up again, and it -till bore the same glorious stars ; ' not a star obscured/ not on.'. ON RECONSTRUCTION. 41 "These people have been disorganized in their civil govern- ments in consequence of the war; the rebels overturned civil gov- ernment in the first place, and we entered with our armies and captured the rebellion; but did that destroy the States? Not at all. We entered the States to save them, not to destroy them. The guarantee of the Constitution is a guarantee to the State-, and to every one of the States, and the obligation that rests upon us is to guarantee to South Carolina a republican form of govern- ment as a State in this Union, and not as a Territory. No State nor the people of any State had any power to withdraw from the Union. They could not do it peacefully ; they undertook to do it by arms. We crushed the attempt; we trampled their armies under our feet; we captured the rebellion; the States are our-: and we entered them to save, and not to destroy. " The Constitution of the United States requires the President, from time to time, to give to Congress information of the state of the Union. Who has any right to presume that the President will not furnish the information which his constitutional duty re- quires? He has at his control all the agencies which are neces- sary. There is the able Cabinet who surround him, with all the officers appointed under them : the post-masters under the Post- office Department, the treasury agents under the Treasury Depart- ment, and almost two hundred thousand men under the control of the War Department, in every part of this ' disaffected ' region, who can bring to the President information from every quarter of all the transactions that exist there. That the President of the United States will be sustained, in the views which he takes in his message, by the people of this country, is as certain as the revolutions of the earth ; and it is our duty to act harmoniously with him, to sustain him, to hold up his hands, to strengthen his heart, to speak to him words of faith, friendship, and courage. " I know that in all these Southern States there are a thousand things to give us pain, sometimes alarm, but notwithstanding the bad appearance which from time to time presents itself in the midst of that boiling caldron of passion and excitement which the war has left still raging there, the real progress which we have made has been most wonderful. I am one of those who look forward with hope, for I believe God reigns and rule- in the aflairs of mankind. I look beyond the excitement of the hour and all the outbreaking passion which sometimes shows TH E Til 1 B T ) '- . \ 7. \ ' 77/ < V. ^ 'G B F. itself in the South, which leads them to make enacti in their I . islatures which are disgraceful t<> themselves, and can n< ver be sanctioned by the people of this country, and also in spite of all the excitement of the North, 1 behold the future full <>t' confi- dence and hope. We have only to come up like men, and stand as tiic real friends of the country ami the Administration, ami give i" tic policy of the President a fair ami substantia] trial, ami all will Ik- well.'*' Mr. Fess< aden, of Maine, then remarked : " When this resolu- tion was first promulgated in the newspapers as havit agreed upon, 1 approved it because 1 sympathized with its and purpose. I < 1 1 * 1 not examine it particularly; but, looking simply at what it was designed for, it met my approbation simply for this reason: that this question of the readmission of these Confederate States, so called, and all the questions connected with that subject, 1 conceived to be of infinite importance, requiring calm and serious consideration, and 1 believe that the appoint- ment of a committee, carefully -elected l>y the two housi take that subject into consideration, was not only wise in itself, hut an imperative duty resting upon the representatives of the pie in the two branches of Congress. For myself, I was not prepared to act upon that question at once, lam not one of those who pin their faith upon any body, however eminent in position, or conceive themselves obliged, on a question of great national importance, to follow out any body's opinions simply because he i- in a position to make those opinions, perhaps, somewhat more imperative than any other citizen of the republic. Talk about the Administration! Sir, we are a part of the Administration, and a very important part of it. 1 have no idea of abandoning the prerogatives, the rights, and the duties of my position in favor of any body, however that person or any uumber of persons may desire it. In saying this. I am not about to express an opinion upon the subject any further than I have expn >sed it. and that is, that in questions of such infinite importance a- this, involving the integrity and welfare of the republic in all future time, we are solemnly hound, and our constituents will demand of us that we examine them with care ami fidelity, and act on our own convictions, and not upon the convictions of others. "I do not agree with the honorable Senator from Wisconsin, that by passing a simple resolution raising a committer <'\' our fj.Y RECONSTR UCTIOJf. 43 own body, and referring to if certain papers, if we conclude to do so, we arc infringing upon the rights of any body or making an intimation with regard to any policy that the President may have seen tit to adopt and recommend to the country. Sir, 1 trust there arc no such things as exclusive friends of the President among us, or gentlemen who desire to be so considered. L have as much respect for the President of the United States probably as any man. I acted with him long, and I might express the favorable opinions which I entertain of him here, if they would not be out of place and in bad taste in this body. That I am disposed and ready to support him to the best of my ability, as ev an insult to nobody; it is not any thing which any sensible man could eve]' find fault with, or be disposed to do so. it is our judgment, our deliberate judgment, our friendly judg- ment — a course of action adopted from regard to tl I of the 44 THE THfirry-XLYTH COXGRESS. community, and that good of the community comprehends the good "t' every individual in it." Mr. Saulsbury, of Delaware, said: "This resolution ia very objectionable to my mind. Ii is for the appointmenl of a com- mittee of the two houses to determine and to report upon what'.' The right of representation of eleven States in this body. What determines the rights of those States to representation here? Is ii the views of the members of the House of Representatives"? Do we stand in need of any light, however bright it may be, that may come from that distinguished quarter? Are we going to ask them to illuminate u^ by wisdom, and report the fad to us whether those States are entitled to representation on this floor? •• Mr. President, on the firs! day of your assemblage alter the battle of Manassas, you and they declared, by joint resolution, that the object for which the war was waged was for do purpose of conquest or subjugation, but it was to preserve the union of the States, and to maintain the rights, dignity, and equality of the several States unimpaired. While that war was being waged there was no action, either of this house or of the House of Representatives, declaring that, when it was over, the exist of those States should be ignored, or their right to representation in Congress denied. Throughout the whole contest the battle- cry was 'the preservation of the Union ' and 'the Union of the State-.' [f there was a voice then raised that those Suites had ceased to have an existence in this body, it was so feeble as to be passed by and totally disregarded. " Sir, suppose this committee should report that those States are not entitled to representation in this body, are you bound by their action? Is there not a higher law, the supreme law of the land, which says if they be States that they shall each be entitled to two Senators on this floor? And shall a report of a joint committee of the two houses override and overrule the fundamental law of the land? Sir, it is dangerous as a precedent, and I protest against it as an hum I ile member of this body. If they be uot States, then the object avowed for which the war was waged was false." Mr. Hendricks, of Indiana, said: " 1 shall vote against this resolution because it refers to a joint committee a subject which. according to my judgment, belongs exclusively to the Senate. 1 know thai the resolution no longer provides in express terms that the Senate, pending the continuance of the investigation of this ON RECONSTRUCTION. 45 committee, will not consider the question of credentials from these States, but in effect it amounts to that. The question is to be referred to the committee, and according to usage, and it would seem to be the very purpose of reference that the body shall not consider the subject while the question is before them. I could not vote for a resolution that refers to a joint committee a subject that this body alone can decide. If there are credentials presented here, this body must decide the question whether the person pre- senting the credentials is entitled to a seat; and how can this body be influenced by any committee other than a committee that it shall raise itself?" Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, then followed: "If I understood the resolution as the Senator from Indiana does, I should cer- tainly vote with him ; but 1 do not so understand it. It is simply a resolution that a joint committee be raised to inquire into the condition of the States which formed the so-called Con- federate States of America, and to report whether they or any of them are entitled to be represented in either House of Con- gress, with leave to report at any time by bill or otherwise. It is true, as the Senator says, that after having raised this commit- tee, the Senate will not be likely to take action in regard to the admission of the Senators from any of these States until the committee shall have had a reasonable time at least to act and report; but it is very desirable that we should have joint action upon this subject. It would produce a very awkward and unde- sirable state of things if the House of Representatives were to admit members from one of the lately rebellious States, and the Senate were to refuse to receive Senators from the same State, "We all know that the State organizations in certain States of the Union have been usurped and overthrown. This is a fact of which we must officially take notice. There was a time when the Senator from Indiana, as well as myself, would not have thought of receiving a Senator from the Legislature, or what purported to l>e the Legislature, of South Carolina. When the people of thai State, by their Representatives, undertook to withdraw from the Union and set up an independent government in that State, in hostility to the Union, when the body acting as a Legislature there was avowedl) acting against this Government, neither he nor I would have received Representatives from it. That was a usurpation which, by force of arms, we have put down. Now the 46 THE /'///// 7'} '-.V/.V 77/ CONGI question arises, Has a State government since been inaugurated there entitled to representation? Is not that a fair subject of inquiry? Ought we nol to be satisfied upon that point? We do not make such an inquiry in reference to members that come from States which have never undertaken to deny their allegiance to the Government of the United States. Having once been ad- mitted as State-, they continue so until by some positive ad they throw off their allegiance, and assume an attitude of hostility to ■ the Government, and make war upon it; and while in that con- dition, I know we should all object that they, of course, could not be represented in the Congress of the United Stat'-. Now, is it not a proper subject for inquiry to ascertain whether they have assumed a position in harmony with the Government? and is it not proper that that inquiry should he made the subject of joint action?" Mr. Guthrie, of Kentucky, wished to ask the friends of this resolution if it was contemplated that this committee should take evidence, and report that evidence to the two houses. " It." -aid he, " they are only to take what is open to every member of the Senate, the fad that the rebellion has been suppressed ; the fact that the President of the United States has appointed officers to collect the taxes, ami. in some instances, judges and other officers ; that he has sent the post-office into all the State-: that there have been found enough individuals loyal to the country to accept the offices; the fad that, the President has issued hi- proclamation to all these States, appointing Provisional Governors ; that they have all elected conventions; that the conventions have rescinded the ordinances of secession; that most of them have amended their constitutions and abolished slavery, and tin' Legislatures of some of them have passed the amendment to the Constitution on the subjed of slavery — if they are only to take these facts, which are open and clear to US all, 1 can see no necessity for such a com- mittee. My principal objection to the resolution i-. that this committee can give us no information which we do not now possess, coupled with the fact that the loyal conservative men of the United States, North, South, East, and West, do most earnestly desire thai we -hall so act that there shall be no longer a doubt that we are the United States of America, in full accord and harmony with each other. ON RECONSmUCTIOjY. 47 "I know it ha* been said thai the President had no authority to do these things. I read the Constitution and the laws of this country differently. He is to 'take care that the laws be faith- fully executed;' he is to suppress insurrection and rebellion. The power is put in his hands, and 1 do not sec why, when he marches into a rebel State, he has not authority to put down a rebel gov- ernment and put up a government that is friendly to the United States, and in accordance with it. I do not see why he can not do that while the war goes on, and I do nor see why he may not do it after the war is over. The people in those States lie at the mercy of the nation. I see no usurpation in what he has done, and if the work- is well done, I, for one, am ready to accept it. Are' we to send out a commission to see what the men whom he has appointed have done? It is said that they are not to be relied on ; that they have been guilty of treason, and we will not trust them. I hope that no such ideas will prevail here. I think this will be a eold .shock to the warm feelings of the nation for restoration, for equal privileges and ecpuil rights. They were in insurrection. We have suppressed that insurrection. They are now States of the Union ; and if they come here according to the laws of the States, they are entitled, in my judgment, to repre- sentation, and we have no right to refuse it. They are in a minority, and they would be in a minority even if they meant now what they felt when they raised their arms against the Government; but they do not, and of those whom they will send here to represent them, nineteen out of twenty will be just as loyal as any of us — even some of those who took up arms against us. "I really hope to see some one move a modification of the test oath, so that those who have repented of their disloyalty may not be excluded, for I really believe that a great many of those who took up arms honestly and wished to carry out the doctrines of secession, and who have succumbed under the force of our arms and the great force of public opinion, can be trusted a great deal more than those who did not tight at all. "To conclude, gentlemen, L see no great harm in this resolu- tion except the procrastination that will result from it, and that will give us nothing but what we have before us." The question being taken, the resolution, as amended, passed the Senate, thirty-three voting in the affirmative and eleven in 48 THE THIRTY-MINTS. CONGRESS. the negative. The following arc the names of those who voted for the resolution : Messrs Antlmiiv. lin.iwn, Chandler, Clark, Conness, Creswell, Fessenden Foot, Poster, Grimes, Harris, Howard, Howe, Lane of Indiana, Lain- ol Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Norton, Nye, Poland, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Wade, Willey, Williams, Wilson, and Yal The following Senators voted against the resolution: Messrs, Buckalew, Cowan, 1 > i x > > 1 1 . Doolittle, Guthrie, Hendricks, Johns Riddle, Saulsbury, Stockton, and Wright. Five Senators were absent : Messrs. Cragin, Davis. Henderson, M < ■ I lougall, and Nesmith. On the a negro still. The cunning of the chisel of a Canova could not make an endur- ing Corinthian column out of a block of anthracite; not because of it- color, hut on a. 'count of the structure of it- substance, lh mighl indeed, with infinite pain-, give it the form, hut he could not impart to it the strength and a. lie-ion of particles required ,,, enable it to brave the elements, and the temple it was made to support would soon crumble into ruin." Mi-. Schofield, of Pennsylvania, -aid: ••The cheapest elevator and best moralizer for an oppressed and degraded class is to in- spire them with self-respect, with the belief in the possibility ot their elevation. Bestow the elective franchise upon the colored DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 57 population of this District, and you awaken the hope and ambi- tion of the whole race throughout the country. Hitherto pun- ishment has hern the only incentive to sobriety and industry furnished these people by American law. They were kept too low to feel disgrace, and reward was inconsistent with the theory of 'service owed.' Let us try now the persuasive power of wages and protection. If colored suffrage is still considered an experi- ment, this District is a good place in which to try it. The same objections do not exist here that are urged on behalf of sonic of the States. No constitutional question intervenes. Here, at least, Congress is supreme. The law can be passed, and if it is found to be bad, a majority can repeal it. The colored race is too small in numbers here to endanger the supremacy of the white people, but large and loyal enough to counteract to some extent disloyal proclivities. " Both the precept and practice of our fathers refute the alle- gation that this is exclusively a white man's government. If we can not now consent to so slight a recognition, as proposed by this bill, of the great underlying theory of our Government, as declared and practiced by our fathers, we are thrown back upon that new and monstrous doctrine, that the five millions of our colored population, and their posterity forever, have no rights that a white man is bound to respect. " Who pronounces this crushing sentence '.' The political South. And what is this South".' The Southern master and his Northern minion. Have these people wronged the South ? Have they filled it with violence, outrage, and murder? No, sir; they are remarkably gentle, patient, and respectful. Have they despoiled its wealth or diminished its grandeur? No, sir; their unpaid toil has made the material South. They removed the forests, cleared the fields, built the dwellings, churches, colleges, cities, highways, railroads, and canals. Why, then, docs the South hate and persecute these people? Because it has wronged them. Injustice always hates its victim. They are forced to look to the North for justice. And what is the North? Not the latitude of frosts; not New England and the Stales that border on the lakes, the Mississippi, and the Pacific. The geographical is lost in the political meaning of the word. The North, in a political sense, means justice, liberty, and union, and in the order in which I have named them. Jefferson defined this 'North' 58 THE THIRTY-.YIXTH CONGRESS. when he wrote 'all men arc created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 5 This North has no geo- graphical boundaries. It embraces the friends of freedom in every quarter of this great republic Many of it- braves! cham- pions hail from th graphical South. The North, thai did not fear the -lave power in it- prime, in the day of it- political strength and patronage, when it commanded alike the nation and the mob, and for the same cruel purpose, will not be intimidated by it- expiring maledictions around this capital. The North must pass this bill to vindicate it- sincerity and it- courage. The -lave power has already learned that the North is terrible in war, and forgiving and gentle in peace; let its crushed and mangled victims learn from the passage of this bill, that the justice of the North, unlimited by lines of latitude, unlimited by color or race, slumbereth not." Mr. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, followed: "In preparing to be- gin the work of reconstructing the grandest of human govern- ments, shattered for a time by treason, and in endeavoring to ascertain what we should do, and how and when it should he done, I have consulted no popular impulse. Groping my way through the murky political atmosphere that has prevailed for more than thirty years, I have seated myself at the feel of • fathers of our country, that I might, as far as my .-;. ons would go, make them in accordance with the principle- of th' who constructed our < rovernment. I can make no suggestion for the improvement of the primary principle- or general structure of our Government, and I would heal it- wounds so carefully that it should descend to posterity unstained and unmarred as it came, under the guidance of Providence, from the hands of those who fashioned it. " For whom do we ask tin- legislation? In I860, according to the census, there were fourteen thousand three hundred and sixteen colored people in this District, and we ask this legislation for the male adults of' that number. Are they in rags and tilth and degradation? The tax-books of the District will tell you that they pay taxes ,,n $1,250,000 worth of real estate, held within the limit- of this District. On one block, on which they pay taxes on fifty odd thousand dollar-, there are hut two colored freeholders who have not bought themselves out of slavery. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 59 One of them has bought as many as eight persons beside him- self — a wife and seven children. Coming to freedom in man- hood, mortgaged for a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars as his own price, he has earned and carried to the Southern robber thousands of dollars, the price extorted for his wife and children, and is now a freeholder in this District. They have twenty-one churches, which they own, and which they maintain at an an- imal cost of over twenty thousand dollars. Their communing members number over forty-three hundred. In their twenty- two Sunday-schools they gather on each Sabbath over three thou- sand American children of African descent. They maintain, sir, to the infamous disgrace of the American Congress and people, thirty-three day schools, eight of which arc maintained exclu- sively by contributions from colored citizens of the District; the remainder by their contributions, eked out by contributions from the generous people of the North ; and every dollar of their million and a quarter dollars of real estate and personal property is taxed for schools to educate the children of the white people of the District, the fathers of many of those children having been absent during the war fighting for the Confederacy and against our constitutional flag. Who shall reproach them with being poor and ignorant while Congress, which has exclusive jurisdic- tion over the District, has, till last year, robbed them day by day, and barred the door of the public school against them '? Such reproach does not lie in the white man's mouth ; at any rate, no member of the Democratic party ought to utter it." The debate was continued on the day following. Mr. Rogers, of Xew Jersey, having obtained the floor, addressed the House for two hours. He said : "I hold that there never has been, in the legislation of the United States, a bill which involved so momentous consequences as that now under consideration, because nowhere in the history of this country, from the time that the first reins of party strife were drawn over the land, was any po- litical party ever known to advocate the doctrine now advocated by a portion of the party on the other side of this House, except within the last year, ami during the heat and strife of battle in the laud. The wisdom of ages for more than live thousand years, and the most enlightened governments that ever existed upon the face of the earth, have handed down to us that grand principle that all governments of a civilized character have been and were 60 THE THI1;T}--.YI.YTII CONGRESS. intended especially for the benefit of white men and white women, and not for those who belong to the negro, Indian, or mulatto race. " It i- the high prerogative which the political system of this country has given to the masses, rich and poor, to exercise the right of suffrage and declare, according to the honest convictions of their hearts, who shall be the officers to rule over them. There is no privilege so high, there is no right so grand. It lies at the very foundation of this Government; and when yon introduce into the social system of thi< country the right of the African race to compete at the ballot-box with the intelligent while citizens of this country, you are disturbing and embitter- ing the whole social system : you rend the bond- of a common ■ » political faith; you break up < imercial intercourse and the free interchanges of trade, and you degrade the people of this country before the eyes of the envious monarchs of Europe, and fill our history with a record of degradation and shame. "Why, then, should we attempt at this time to inflict the sys- tem of oegro suffrage upon those who happen to he so unfortunate a- to reside in the District of Columbia? This city bears the name of George Washington, the father of our country ; and aS it was founded by him, so I wish to hand it down to those who shall come after us, preserving that principle which declares that the sovereignty is in the white people of the country, for whose benefit this Government was established. 1 am not ready to believe that those men who have laid down their lives in the batth- of the late revolution, who came from their home- like the torrents that sweep over their native hills and mountains, those men who gathered round the sacred precincts of the tomb of Washington to uphold and perpetuate our proud heritage of liberty, intended to inflict upon the people of this District, or of this land, the monstrous doctrine of political equality of the negro race with the white at the ballot-box. mi such dogma a- tlii< was ever announced by the Republican party in their platforms. When that party met at Chicago, in I860, they took pains to enunciate the great principle of self-gov- ernment which underlies the institutions of this country, that each Stat.- ha- the right to control its own dome-tie policy according to it- own judgmenl exclusively. 1 ask the gentlemen on the other side of the house \<> allow the people of the District of Columbia to exercise the same great righl of self-government, to DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 01 determine by their votes at the ballot-box whether they desire to inaugurate a system of political equality with the colored people of the District. "Self-government was the great principle which impelled our fathers to protest against the powers of King George. That was the principle which led the brave army of George Washington across the ice of the river Delaware. Tt was the principle which -truck a successful blow against despotism, and planted liberty upon this continent. It was the principle that our fathers claimed the Parliament of England had no right to invade, and drove the colonies into rebellion, because laws were passed without their consent by a Parliament in which they were unrepresented. " I am here to-day to plead for the white people of this District, upon the same grounds taken by our fathers to the English Par- liament, in favor of self-government and the right of the people of the District to be heard upon this all-important question. Al- though we may have a legal yet we have no moral right, according to the immutable principles of justice, and according to the declara- tion of Holy Writ, that we should do unto others as we would they should do unto us, to inflict upon the people of this Dis- trict this fiendish doctrine of political equality with a race that God Almighty never intended should stand upon an equal footing with the white man and woman in social or civil life." Mr. Farnsworth, of Illinois, replied : " He [Mr. Rogers] says this is a white man's Government. ' A white man's Government ! ' Why, sir, did not the Congress of the United States pass a law for enrolling into the service of the United States the black man as well as the white man ? Did not we tax the black man as well as the white man? Does he not contribute his money as well as his blood for the protection and defense of the Govern- ment? O, yes; and now. when the black man comes hobbling home upon his crutches and his wooden limbs, maimed for life, bleeding, crushed, wounded, is he to be told by the people who called him into the service of the Government, 'This is a white man's Government: you have nothing to do with it'." Shame! I say, eternal shame upon such a doe-trine, and upon the men who advocate it ! " What should be the test as to the right to exercise the elective franchise? I contend that the only question to be asked should be, ' Is he a man ? ' The test should be that of manhood, not that 77/ /•; 77/ / R T J "-.A 7. \ '77/ ( '<>. \ 'G R /> S of color, or races, <>r class. Is he endowed with conscience and reason? I- he an immortal being? [f these questions are an- swered in the affirmative, he has the same righl to protection that we all enjoy. " L am in favor, Mr. Speaker, of making suffrage equal and universal. 1 believe that greater wisdom is concentrated in the decisions of the ballot-box when all citizens of a certain age vote than when only a pari vote. If you apply a test founded on education or intelligence, where will you stop? One man will say that the voter should be able to read the Constitution and to write his name; another, that he should be acquainted with the history of the United States; another will demand a still higher degree of education and intelligence, until you will establish an aristocracy of wisdom, which is one of the worst kinds of aris- tocracy. Sir, the men who formed this Government, who believed in the rights of human nature, and designed the Government to protect them, believed, 1 think, as I do, that \\ hen suffrage is made universal, you concentrate in the ballot-box a larger amount of wisdom than when you exclude a portion of the citizens from the right of >nlVrage. ■• 1 errant, sir, that many of the colored men whom I would en- franchise are poor and ignorant, hut we have made them so. W e have oppressed them by our laws. We have stolen them from their cradles and consigned them to helpless slavery. The .-hackles are now knocked from their limbs, and they emerge from the house of bondage and stand forth as men. Let us now take the next grand step, a step which must commend itself to our judgment and consciences. Let us clothe these men with the rights of free- men, and give them the power to protect their rights. "Sir, as I have already remarked, we have passed through a fiery ordeal. There are but few homes within our land that are i.< o made desolate by the loss of a son or a father. The widow and the orphan meet us wherever we turn. The maimed and crippled soldiers of the republic are every-where seen. Many fair fields have become cemeteries, where molder the remain- of the noble men who have laid down their lives in defense of our Government. We thought that we had attained the crisis of our troubles during the progress of the war. But it has keen said that the ground-swell of the ocean after the Btorm is often more dan- gerous to the mariner than the tempesl itself j and 1 am inclined to DISTRICT OF COLUMBJ.I. GS think that this is true in reference to the present posture of our na- tional affairs. The storm has apparently subsided ; but, sir, if we fail to do our duty now as a nation — and that duty is so simple that a child can understand it; no elaborate argumenl need enforce it, as no sophistry can conceal it; it is simply to give to one man the same rights that we give to another — if we fail now in this our plain duty as a nation, then the ship of state is in more peril from this ground-swell on which we are riding than it was during the fierce tempest of war. I trust that this Congress will have the firmness and wisdom to guide the old ship safely into the haven of peace and security. This we can do by fixing our eyes upon the guiding star of our fathers — the equal rights of all men." The discussion was resumed on the following day, January 12, by Mr. Davis, of Xew York : " Republican government can never rest safely, it can never rest peacefully, upon any foundation save that of the intelligence and virtue of its subjects. Xo govern- ment, republican in form, was ever prosperous where its people were ignorant and debased. And in this Government, where our fathers paid so much attention to intelligence, to the cultiva- tion of virtue, and to all considerations which should surround and guard the foundations of the republic, I am sure that we would do dishonor to their memory by conferring the franchise upon men unfitted to receive it and unworthy to exercise it. " I am perfectly aware that in many States we have given the elective franchise to the white man who is debased and ignorant. I regret it, because I think that intelligence ought always, either as to the black or the white man, to be made a test of suffrage. And I glory in the principles that have been established by Mas- sachusetts, which prescribes, not that a man should have money in his purse, but that he should have in his head a cultivated brain, the ability to read the Constitution of his country, and intelligence to understand his rights as a citizen. "I have never been one of those who believed that the black man had 'no rights that the white man was bound to respect. 5 I believe that the black man in this country is entitled to citizen- ship, and, by virtue of that citizenship, is entitled to protection, to the full power of this Government, wherever he may lie found on the face of God's earth; that he has a right to demand that the shield of this Government shall be held over him, and that its powers shall be exerted on his behalf to the same extent as 64 THE TIIIl;T)--.Yl.YTH m.Ydj, if he were the proudest grandee of the laud. But, sir, citizen- ship i- one thing, and the right of suffrage is another and a different thins:: and in circumstances such as exist around us, I am unwilling that general, universal, unrestricted suffrage should be -ranted to the black men of this District, as is proposed by the bill under consideration. "This whole subject is within the power of Cor I if we grant restricted privilege to-day, we can extend the ex< rcise of thai privilege to-morrow. Public sentiment on this, a- on a srreat many subiects, is a matter of slow growth and develop- ment. That is the history of the world. Development upon all great subjects is slow. The development of the globe itself lias required countless ages before it was prepared for the introduc- tion of man upon it. And take the progress of the human race through the historic age— kingdoms and empires, systems of social polity, systems of religion, systems of science, have been of no rapid growth, but long centuries intervened between their origin and their overthrow. ••The Creator placed man on earth, not for the perfection of the individual, but the race: and therefore he locked up the mysteries of his power in the bosom of the earth and in the depths of the heavens, rendering them invisible to mankind. He made man study those secrets, those mysteries, in order that his uetiius might be cultivated, his views enlarged, his intellect matured, so that he might gradually rise in the scale of being, and finally attain the full perfection for which his Creator de- signed him. "Thus governments, political systems, and political rights have been the subjects of study and improvement: changes adapted to the advance of society arc made; experiments arc tried, based upon reason and upon judgment, and those arc safest which in their gradual intro.ln.iion avoid unnecessary violence and eon- vulsion. "1 submit, sir, whether it be wise for us now g • suddenly to alt.r so entirely the political steUw of so great a number of the citizens of this District, in conferring upon them indiscriminately the right of franchise." Mr. Chanler, of New York, then addressed the House: " li' sir, it should ever be your good fortune to visit romantic old Spain, and to enter the fortress and palace of Alhamhra, the DISTRICT OF COLUMBL . Go fairest monument of Moorish grandeur and skill, as this Capitol is the pride of American architecture, you may sec cut in stone a hand holding a key. surmounting the horse-shoe arch of the main gateway. They art- the three types of strength, speed, and secresy, the boast of a now fallen Saracen race, sons of that sea of sand, the desert, who carried the glory of [slam to furthest Gades. In an evil hour of civil strife and hitter hatred of fac- tion, the Alhambra was betrayed to Spain, 'to feed fat an ancient grudge' between political chiefs. The stronghold of the race, with the palace, the sacred courts of justice, and all the rare works of art — the gardens of unrivaled splendor — all that was their own of majesty, strength, and beauty, became the trophies of another. "The legend of the Saracen exile tells the story of penitenee and shame; and to the last moment of his sad life he sighs in the sultry desert for the fair home of his ancestors, the gorgeous Alhambra. We, too, arc descended from a raee of conquerors, who erossed the ocean to establish the glory of civil and religious liberty, and secure freedom to themselves and their posterity. To-day we are assembled in the Alhambra of America; here is our citadel: here our courts of highest resort; around these halls cluster the proudest associations of the American people; they seem almost sacred in their eyes. No hostile foot of foreign foe or domestic traitor has trodden them in triumph. Above it floats the flag, the emblem of our Union. That Union is the emblem of the triumphs of the white race. That raee rules by the ballot. Shall we surrender the ballot, the emblem of our sovereignty; the flag, the emblem of our Union; the Union, the emblem of our national glory, that they may become the badges of our weakness and the trophies of another race? Never, sir! never, never ! "Shall the white laborer bow his free, independent, and hon- ored brow to the level of the negro just set free from slavery, and, bv yielding the entrance to this great citadel of our nation, surrender the mastery of his race, over the Representatives of the people, the Senate, and Supreme Court of this Union? Then, sir, the white workingman's sovereignty would begin to cease to be. "Then the most democratic majesty of American Liberty would be humbled in the little dust which was lately raised by a brief campaign of two hundred thousand negro troops, and even they 5 66 THE THIRTY-NINTH. CONGRESS. led by white officers, while millions of white soldiers held the field in victory by their own strength and valor. Deny it if ye dare! Sir, I know that this is a white man's Government, and I believe the white workingman has the manhood which shall preserve it to his latest posterity, pure and strong, in 'justice tempered with mercy.' "There may be a legend hereafter telling of the exile of Rep- resentatives now on this floor, who, in the hour of party Bpite, betrayed the dominion <>f their race here and the stronghold of their people's liberty, to a servile ami foreign race." Near the close of Mr. ('hauler's remarks, his time having been extended by courtesy of the House, a forensic passage at arms occurred between that gentleman and Mr. Bingham, of Ohio. Mr. Chanter had said: " I deny that any obligation rests against this Government to do any thing more for the negro than ha- already been done. 'On what meats doth this Ca-ar W-v<\ that he has grown so great?' The white soldier did as much work as he, fought a.- well, died a- bravely, suffered in hospitals and in the field as well as he. More than this, the white soldier fought to liberate the slave, and did do it. The white soldier did more: hi' fought to preserve institutions and rights endeared to him by every hallowed association; to overthrow the rebellion of his brother against their Commonwealth and glorious Union; to preserve the sovereignty of the people against the conspiracy of a slave aristocracy, if you will; to maintain the fabric of the Gov- ernment built by their fathers for them and their race in every country of kindred nun who, downtrodden and disenfranchised, look to this country as a sure refuge. The white soldier fought as a volunteer, as a responsible, free, and resolute citizen, know- ing for what he fought, and generously letting the slave share with him the honor, ami bestowing on him more than his share of the profit- of the white man'- victory over hi- equal and the negro's master. " We are willing that the negro should have every protection which the law can throw around him, hut there is a majesty which 'hedges in a king.' That he ought not to have until he shows himself ' every inch a king.' Who would be free, themselves must Btfike the blow. Some are born great, some achi< .•■ greatness and some have greatness thrift upon them. 1 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 67 "We arc opposed to thrusting honor on the negro. lie is to- day, as a rare, as dependent <>n tin- power and skill of the white race fur protection as when he was first brought from A trie;;. Not one act of theirs has proved the capacity of the black race for self-government. They have neither literature, arts, nor arms, as a race. They have never, during all the changes of dynasties or revolution of States, risen higher than to be the helpers of the contending parties. They have had the same opportunity as the Indian to secure their independence of the white race, but have never systematically even attempted it on this continent, although they have been educated with equal care, and in the same schools as the white man. Their race has been subject to the white man, and has submitted to the yoke." Mr. Bingham. — " I understood the gentleman to say, that the colored race had failed to strike for their rights during the late rebellion. I wish to remind the gentleman of the fact, which ought to bring a blush to the cheek of every American citizen., that at the beginning of this great struggle, a distinguished gen- eral, who, I have no doubt, received the political support of the gentleman himself for the Presidency, and who, then at the head of an American army within the Commonwealth of Virginia, issued his proclamation, as general in command of the army, notifying the insurgents in arms against the Constitution that, if their slaves rose in revolt for their liberty, he, Major-General McClellan, by the whole force of the army at his command, would crush them with an iron hand. Yet the gentleman gets up here to-day, after a record of that sort, to cast censure upon this people because they did not strike for their liberties against the com- bined armies of the republic and the armies of treason!" Mr. Chanler. — "My honorable friend from Ohio may have made a good point against General MeClcllan, but he has made none against me. I admit that they have made successful insur- rections, but my argument was not to the effect that the negro race was not capable of the bloodiest deeds. I avoided entering into that question. I asserted that they had made successful in- surrection; that they had held the white race under their heel in Ilayti and St. Domingo. I would only say, with regard to this question of race, that I assert there is no record of the black race having proved its capacity for self-government as a race; that they have never struck a blow for freedom, and maintained their 63 Til!' THIRTY-MINTE CONGRE& ■ >m and independence as individuals when free. I appe •v, and to the gentleman from < >li I< > [Mr. Bingham], and I k as a student of history, and the representative of a race who-*- proudest boast is that their capacity for self-govern- ment is the only charter of their liberty. I assail m> race; I I no man. I have taken the greatest pains to prove that the inalienable rights of the black man are as sacred to me a- tl inalienable rights I have received from mv God. If the gentle- misunderstood me, I hope he will accept this explanation. If I have not met hi- question, I will now yield the floor t" him to continue/ 3 Mr. Bingham. — " And 1 continue thus fir, that the gentle- man's speech certainly has relation to the rights of the black man within the Republic of the I " nit--- 1 States. What he may say of their history outside of the jurisdiction of this country, it i- not very important for me to take notice of. But inasmuch as the tleman ha- seen tit. in hi.- response to what I -aid. t" refer to the testimony of history, I will bear witness now. by the authority of history, that this very race of which he speaks i- the only race now existing upon this planet that ever hewed their way ..tit of prison-house of chattel slavery to the sunlight of personal rty by their own unaided arm. So much for that part of the ! - argument as relate.- to history." hanler. — "Doe- the gentleman allude now to what has d< u in other lands than this? [ ask the question because he - he doe- not like me to go outside of the jurisdiction of this . try, and 1 therefore ask him not to go too far into Africa.'" . Bingham. — " I am not in Africa. I refer to what the in- ferred to himself. The insurrection in St. Domingo, 1 stands without a parallel in the history of any race now liv- 3 on this earth, and 1 challenge the gentleman to refute that - • ■ from history." Mr. anler. — " Thai i- admitted." Kngham. — "That is admitted. Then 1 want to know, a fact like that conceded, what sort of logic, what sort of ; sorl of reason, what sorl of justice i- there in the ■ the gentleman made 'here in a deliberative assembly the question of the personal enfranchisement of the race, when he says in the .-- it here, right in the face -. that they only are entitled to their liberty who strike DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 69 tlit' blow for and maintain their liberty? They did strike the blow in Hayti, and did maintain their liberty there. They .struck such a blow for liberty there as no other race of men under like circumstances ever before struck, now represented by any organ- ized community upon this planet; and that the gentleman con- ceded. And yet this sort of argument is. to be adduced here as reason why these people in the District of Columbia should not receive the consideration of this House, and be protected in their rights as men. If the gentleman's remark is not adduced for that purpose, then it is altogether foreign to our inquiry. If the gentleman can assign any other reason for the introduction of any such argument as that, I should like to hear him." Mr. Chanler. — "I merely wish to say, in reply to the gentle- man, that I have read history a little further back. I remember when the British fleet and the British army held out a similar threat to the white race of this country. The proclamation of General McClellan did keep down the negroes; and this fact proves what I assert — that they are a race to be kept under. No race capable of achieving its liberty by its own efforts, would have listened for one moment to the paper threats of all the generals in the world. The negroes listened to MeClellan, and they shrank behind the bush. They are bushmen in Africa. They are a dependent race, unwilling — I assert it from the record of his- tory — unwilling to assert their independence at the risk of their lives. By their own eiforts they never have attained, and I firmly believe they never will attain, their liberty." 'Sir. Bingham replied: "I desire to say to the gentleman from Xew York, when he talks of being a 'student of history,' that before the tribunal of history the facts are not against me nor against the colored race. I beg leave to say to the gentleman that these people have borne themselves as bravely, as well, and, I may add, as wisely during the great contest just closed, as any people to whom he can point, situated in like circumstances, at any period of the world's history. They were in chains when the rebellion broke out. They constituted but one-sixth of the whole body of the people. By the terms of the Constitution of the United States, if they lifted a hand in the assertion of their right to freedom, they were liable that moment to be crushed bv the combined power of the Republic, called out, in pursuance of the very letter of the Constitution, 'to suppress insurrection.' 70 THE TIIIi; l)-.vr.YTlI CONGRESS Yet, notwithstanding the feet that their whole living generation and the generations before them, running back two centuries, had been enslaved and brutalized, reduced to the sad and miserable condition of chattels, which, for want of a better nunc we call a 'slave' — an article of merchandise, a thing of trad , with ii" knowledged rights in the present, and denied even the bopi of a heritage in the great hereafter — yet, sir, the moment that the word ' Liberty' ran along your rank-, the moment that the won! 'Emancipation' was emblazoned upon your banners, those men who, with their ancestors, had been enslaved through five gene- rations, rose as one man to stand by this republic, the last hope of oppressed humanity upon the earth, until they numbered one hundred and seventy-five thousand arraved in arms under your ■ * * banners, doing firmly, unshrinkingly, and defiantly their full share in securing the final victory of our arm-. I have -said this much in defense of men who had the manhood, in the hour of the nation's trial, to strike for the flag and the unity of the republic in the tempest of the great conflict, and to stand, where brave men only could stand, on the field of poised battle, where the earthquake and the tire led the charge. Sir, I am not mistaken; and the record of history to which J have referred does not, as the gentleman affirms it does, make against me." Mr. Grinnell, of Iowa, in reply to Mr. Chauler, said: "He [Mr. Chanler] proceeds to say that they are now. as a class, de- pendent as when tiny were brought from their native wilds in Africa. Sir, I believe if the gentleman were master of all Ian- guages, if he were to attempt to put into a sentence the quintes- sence, the high-wines, and sublimation <>\' an untruth, he could not have more concentrated his language into a libel. "What is the fact, sir? It is perfectly notorious that these four million slaves have not only taken care of themselves amid all the nious impediments which tyrant- could impose, but the; have borne upon their stalwart shoulders their masters, million- of people, for a century. Why, sir, it seemed a- impossible for a man to swim the Atlantic with Mount A t la- upon hi- bqck, or make harmonious base to the thunders of heaven. But these men have achieved the world'- wonder — coming out from the tortures of slavery, from the prison-house, untainted with dishonor or crime, and out of the war tree, uoble, brave, and more worthy of their friend-, always true to the fl DISTRICT OF COIl' Mil 1. 1 71 "Mr. Speaker, it was in fable that a man pointed a lion to the picture which represented the king of the forest prostrate, with a man's fool on his neck, and asked what lie thought of that. The reply was, ' Lions have no painters. 5 For days the unblushing apostles of sham Democracy have in this House drawn pictures of the ignorance and degradation of the people of color in the District of Columbia. Had the subjects of their wanton defama- tion had a Representative here, there would have been a different coloring to the picture, and I would gladly leave their defense to the Representatives of classes who have by hundreds darkened these galleries with their sable countenances, waiting for days to hear the decisive vote which announces that their freedom is not a mockery. "Who are they to whom this bill proposes to give suffrage? They are twenty thousand people, owning twenty-one churches, maintaining thirty-three day schools, and paying taxes on more than one and a quarter million dollars' worth of real property. Thirty per cent, of their number were slaves ; but the census does not show that there is a Democratic congressional district in the Union where a larger proportion of its population are found at- tendant at the churches or in the schools. " They did not follow the example of their pale-faced neighbors, to the number of thousands, crossing the line to join in the rebell- ion ; but three thousand and more of their number went into the Union army, nearly one thousand of whom, as soldiers, fell bv disease and battle in the room of those avIio wept on Northern soil for rebel defeats, and now decry the manhood and withhold just rights from our true national defenders. "In the South they were our friends. In the language of an official dispatch of Secretary Seward to Minister Adams, ' Every- where the American general receives his most useful and reliable information from the negro, who hails his coming as the harbinger of freedom. 1 Not one, but many, of our generals have proclaimed that the negro has gained by the bayonet the ballot. Admiral Du Pont made mention of the negro pilot Small, who brought out the steamer Planter, mounting a rifled and siege gun, from Char- leston, as a prize to us, under the very guns of the enemy. lie brought us the first trophy from Fort Sumter, and information more valuable than the prize. "The celebrated charge of the negro brigade at the conflict at 72 THE THIRTY-NIJfTR CONGRE& Porl Hudsonhas passed into history. The position of the colored people in the State of Lowa reflects lasting honor on their loyalty, and our brave white soldiers would not have me withhold the facts. In the -State there were between nine hundred and a thousand people of their class subject to military duty. Of that number more than seven hundred entered the army. They put to blush the patriotism of the dominant race in all Democratic dis- tricts. Seven-tenths of a class, without the inducement of com- missions as lieutenants, captains, colonel-, commissaries, or quar- termasti rs, braving the hate and vengeance of rebels, rushing into the deadly imminent breach in the darkest hour of our struggle! Where is the parallel to this? They had no flag; it was a mockery. There was no pledge of political franchise. Does history cite us to a country where so large a per cent, of the pop- ulation went forth for the national defense? It was not under the Caesars; and Harold, in the defense of Britain, left behind him a larger per cent, of the stalwart and the strong. They were more eager to maintain the national honor than the zealots to rescue Jerusalem from the profanation of infidels. Not Frank or Hun. nor Huguenot or Roundhead, or mountaineer, Hungarian, or Pole, exceeded their sacrifices made when tardily accepted. And this is the race now a.-king our favor. " Mr. Speaker, it will be one of the most joyful occasions of my lit'e to give expression to my gratitude by voting a ballot to those who owed us so little, yet have aided us SO faithfully and well. My conscience approves it as a humane act to the millions who tor centuries have groaned under a terrible realization that on the side of the oppressor there is power. "My purpose i- not to leave that heritage of shame to my children, that 1 forgot those whose bl 1 fed our rivers and crim- soned th<' sea, and left them outcasts in the l land of the free,' preferring white treason to sable loyalty. 1 rather vote death the penalty for the chief traitor, all honor and reward for our soldiery, .md a ballot, safety, and justice for the poor." On the loth of January the discussion was continued by Mr. Kasson, of [owa, who said : " Much ha- been -aid in this debate about the gallantry of the negro troops, and about the number of negro troops in the war. Gentlemen have declared here so broadly that we were indebted to them for our victories a- to ac- tually convey the impression that they won nearly all the s'icto- DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. ries accomplished by the armies of the United States, and that to them are we indebted for the salvation of our country and our triumph over the rebellion. "I do not agree with them in the extent of their praise, nor the grounds upon which it has been placed. One gentleman, 1 think it was the gentleman from Pennsylvania, speaks of our debt to the negroes, because they have fought our battles for us. This is a falsification of the condition of the negroes, and of the history of the country in this particular. Those negroes fought for their liberty, which was involved in the preservation of the Union of the States. They fought with us to accomplish the maintenance of the integrity of the country, which carried with it the liberty of their own race; and what would have been said of the negroes if they had not, under such circumstances, come forward and united with us? While I yield to the negro troops the credit of having exhibited bravery and manhood when put to the test, I do not yield to them the exclusive or chief credit of having won the victory for the Government of my country in preserving this Union. Let us not, under false assertions of fact, send out to the country and the world from this floor the declaration that the white race of this country are wanting in the gallantry, the de- votion, and the patriotism which ultimately secured for our armies triumph, and for our nation perpetuity. " Unless intelligence exists in this country, unless schools are supported and education diffused throughout the country, our in- stitutions are not safe, and either anarchy or despotism will be the result; and when you propose substantially to introduce at once three-quarters of a million or a million of voters, the great mass of whom are ignorant and unable to tell when the ballot they vote is right side up, then I protest against such an alarming in- fusion of ignorance into the ballot-box, into that sacred palladium, as we have always called it, of the liberties of our country. Let us introduce them by fit degrees. Let them come in as fast as they are fit, and their numbers will not shock the character of our institutions. "I turn for a single moment to call attention to the philan- thropy of the proposition. If you introduce all without regard to qualification, without their being able to read or write, and thus to understand the questions on which they are to decide, what would be the effect? You will take away from them the 74 THE THIRTY-Xl.YTIf CONGRESS. strongest incentive to learn to read or write. As a race, it is not accustomed to position and property; it has no homesteads, it has no stake in the country : and unless they arc required to be intel- ligent, and qualified to understand something about our institu- tions and our laws, and the questions which arc submitted to the people from time to time, you say then to them. ' No matter whether or not you make progress in civilization or education, vou >hall have all the rights of citizenship/ and in that way you takeaway from them all special motive to education and improve- ment. On the contrary, if the ability to read and write and un- derstand the ballot i- made the qualification on the part of th< people to exercise the right of voting, the remaining portion will see that color i.- not exclusion. They would all aspire to the qualification itself as preliminary to the act. You can submit no motive to that race so powerful for the purpose of developing in them the education and intelligence required. "I say, therefore, on whatever grounds you put it. whether you regard the safety of our institutions or the light of philanthropy, vou should insist on qualifications substantially the same as t' ■ required in the State of Massachusetts. And let me -ay that, taking the State of Massachusetts as an example of the result of general intelligence and qualified suffrage, and a careful guardian- ship of the ballot-box, I know of no more illustrious example in this or any other country of it< importance. ■•With a credit that surpa<-es that of the United States, with a historv that i< surpassed by no State in the Union, with wealth that i- almost fabulous in proportion to its population, with a prosperity almost unknown in the history of the world, that State stands before us to-day in all her dignity, strength, wealth, intel- ligence, and virtue. And if we. by adopting similar principles in other Stale-, can secure such results, we certainly have an indue, - incut to consider well how far this condition is to he attributed to her diffused education, and to the provisions of her constitution." \t the close of Mr. Kasson's speech, a colloquy occurred be- tween him and his colleague, Mr. Price, eliciting the fact that the question of negro suffrage in Iowa had been Bquarely before the people Of that State in the late fall election, and their vote had been in favor of the measure by a majority "f Bixteen thousand. Mr. Julian, of In. liana, having obtained the floor near the hour of adjournment, made his argument on the following .lay, when DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 75 the consideration of the question was resumed. In answer to the objection that negro voting would "lead to the amalgamation of the races or social equality," he said: "On this subject there is nothing left to conjecture, and no ground for alarm. Negro suf- frage has been very extensively tried in this country, and we are able to appeal to tacts. Negroes had the right to vote in all the Colonies save one, under the Articles of Confederation. They voted, I believe, generally, on the question of adopting the Con- stitution of the United States. They have voted ever since in Xew York and the New England States, save Connecticut, in which the practice was discontinued in 1818. They voted in Xew Jersey till the year 1840; in Virginia and Maryland till 1833; in Pennsylvanii till 1838; in Delaware till 1831; and in North Carolina and Tennessee till 1836. I have never under- stood that in all this experience of negro suffrage the amalgama- tion of the races was the result. I think these evils are not at all complained of to this day in New England and New York, where negro suffrage is still practiced and recognized by law." In answer to the argument that a "war of races" might en- sue, Mr. Julian said: "Sir, a war of races in this country can only be the result of denying to the negro his rights, just as such wars have been caused elsewhere; and the late troubles in Jamaica should teach us, if any lesson can, the duty of dealing justly with our millions of freedmen. Like causes must produce like results. English law made the slaves of Jamaica free, but England failed to enact other laws making their freedom a blessing. The old spirit of domination never died in the slave-master, but was only maddened by emancipation. For thirty years no measures were adopted tending to protect or educate the freedmen. At length, and quite recently, the colonial authorities passed a whipping act. then a law of eviction for people of color, then a law imposing heavy impost duties, bearing most grievously upon them, and finally a law providing for the importation of coolies, thus taxing the freedmen for the very purpose of taking the bread out of the mouths df their own children! I believe it turns out, after all, thai these outraged people even then did not rise up against the local government ; but the white ruffians of the island, goaded on by their own unchecked rapacity, and availing themselves of the infernal pretext of a black insurrection, perpetrated deeds of rapine and vengeance that find no parallel anywhere, save in the 76 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS, - of their natural allies, the late slave-breeding rebels, against mir flag. Sir, is there no warning here against the policy of leaving our freedmen to the tender mercies of their old masters' A iv the white rebels of this District any better than the Jamaica villains to whom 1 have referred? The late report of General Schurz gives evidence of some important facts which will doubt- less apply here. The mass of the white people in the South, he says, arc totally destitute of any national feeling. The same big- 1 sectionalism that swayed them prior to the war is almost universal. Nor have they any feeling of the enormity of treason as a crime. To them it is not odious, as very naturally it would cot be, under the policy which foregoes the punishment of traitors, and gives so many of them the chief places of power in the South. Ajid their hatred of the negro to-day is as intense and scathing and as universal as before the war. I believe it to be even more - >. The proposition to educate him and elevate his condition is every- where met with contempt and scorn. They acknowledge thi ( slavery, as it once existed, is overthrown; but the continued in- feriority and subordination of the colored race, under some form of vassalage or serfdom, is regarded by them as certain. Sir, tl have no thought of any thin-else; and if the ballot shall be with- held from the freedmen after the withdrawal of military po\i the most revolting forms of oppression and outrage will be prac- ticed, resulting, at last, in that very war of races which is foolishly apprehended as the effect of giving the negro his rights." A serious question confronted Mr. Julian, namely: How could Representatives from States which negroes by constitutional pro- vision are forbidden to enter, be expected to vote for n< gro sufirs in this District? He said: " In seeking to meet this difficulty, several considerations must he borne in mind. In the first pla , the demand for negro suffrage in this District rests not alone upon the general -round of right, of democratic equality, but upon pe- culiar reasons superinduced by the late war, which make it an immediate practical issue, involving not merely the welfare of the colored man. but the safety of society itself, [f civil government is to be revived at all in the South, it i> perfectly -elf-evident that the loyal men there must vote; hut the loyal men are the negroes; ami th<' disloyal are tin- whites To put back the governing power into the hands of the very men who broughl on the war. ami ex- clude those who have proved themselves the true friend- of the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 77 country, would be utterly suicidal and atrociously unjust. Negro suffrage in the districts lately in revolt is thus a present political necessity, dictated by the selfishness of the white loyalist as well as his sense of justice. But in our Western States, in which the negro population is relatively small, and the prevailing sentiment of their white people is loyal, no such emergency exists. Society will not he endangered by the temporary postponement of the right of negro suffrage till public opinion shall render it prac- ticable, and leaving the question of suffrage in the loyal States he decided bv them on its merits. Tf Indiana had gone out of her proper place in the Union, and her loyal population hail been found too weak to force her hack into it without negro bullets and bay- onets, and it", after thus coercing- her again into her constitutional orbit, her loyalist- had. been found unable to hold her there with- out negro ballots, the question of negro suffrage in Indiana would most obviously have been very different from the comparatively abstract one which it now is. It would, it is true, have involved the question of justice to the negroes of Indiana, but the tran- scendently broader and more vital question of national salvation also. Let me add further, that should Congress pass this hill, and should the ballot he given to the negroes in the sunny South generally, those in our Northern and Western States, many of them at least, may return to their native land and its kindlier skies, and thus quiet the nerves of conservative gentlemen who dread too (lose a proximity to those whose -kin-, owing to some providential ( versight, wen 1 somehow or other not stamped with the true orthodox luster. '"The ballot should be given to the negroes as a matter of justice to them. It should likewise he done as a matter of retrib- tire justice to the slaveholders and rebels. According to the best information 1 can obtain, a very large majority of the white people of this District have keen rebels in heart during the war, and are rebels in heart still. That contempt for the negro and scorn of free industry, which constituted the mainspring of the hellion, cropped out here during the war in every form that was possible, under the immediate shadow of the central Govern- ment. Meaner rebels than many in this District could scarcely have been found in the whole land. They have not hem pun- ished. The halter has been cheated out of their necks. I am very sorry to say that under what seems to be a false mercy, a 78 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. misapplied humanity, the guiltiest rebels of the war have thus far been allowed to escape justice. I have no desire to censure the authorities "{"the Government for this fact. I hope they have some valid excuse for their action. This question of pun- ishment I know is a difficult one. The work of punishment is SO vast that it naturally palsies the will to enter upon it. It ir can be thoroughly done <»n this side of the grave. And were it practicable to punish adequately all the most active and guilty rebels, justice would still remain unsatisfied. Far guiltier men than they are the rebel sympathizers of the loyal States, who coolly stood by and encouraged their friends in the Smith in their work of national rapine and murder, and while they were ever ready to go joyfully into the service of the devil, were too cow- ardly t<» wear his uniform and carry his weapons in open day. But Congress in this District has the power to punish by ballot, and there will he a beautiful, poetic justice in the exercise of this power. Sir, let it be applied. The rebels here will recoil from it with horror. Some of the worst of them, sooner than submit to black suffrage, will doubtless leave the District, and thus render it an unspeakable service. To be voted down and governed by Yankee and negro ballots will seem to them an intolerable griev- ance, and this is among the excellent reasons why I am in favor of it. If neither hanging nor exile can be extemporized for the entertainment of our dome-tie rebels, let us require them at least to make their bed on negro ballot- during the remainder of their unworthy lives. Of course they will not relish it, but that will be their own peculiar concern. Their darling institution must be charged with all the consequences of the war. They -owed the wind, and, if required, must reap the whirlwind. Retribu- tion follows wrong-doing, and this law must work out it- results. Rebels and their sympathizers, I am sure, will fare as well under uegro suffrage as they deserve, and I desire to leave them, as far as practicable, in the hand- of their colored brethren. Nor .-hall 1 -top to inquire very critically whether the negroes are fit to vote. A- between themselves and white rebel.-, who deserve to be hung, they are eminently tit. I would not have them more so. Will you, Mr. Speaker, will even my conservative and Democratic friends, l>e particularly nice or fastidious in the choice of a man to vote down a rebdf Shall we insist upon a perfectly finished gentleman and scholar to vote down the traitors and white trash DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 79 of tliis District, who have recently signalized themselves by mob- bing unoffending negroes? Sir, almost any body, it seems to me, will answer the purpose. I do not pretend that the colored men here, should they get the ballot, will not sometimes abuse it. They will undoubtedly make mistakes. In some eases they may even vote on the side of their old masters. But I feel pretty safe in saying that even white men, perfectly free from all suspicion of negro blood, have sometimes voted on the wrong side. Sir, I appeal to gentlemen on this floor, and especially to my Demo- cratic friends, to say whether they can not call to mind instances in which white men have voted wrong? Indeed, it rather strikes me that white voting, ignorant, depraved, party-ridden, Democratic white voting, had a good deal to do in hatching into life the re- bellion itself, and that no results of negro voting arc likely to be much worse." After an hour occupied by Mr. Randall and Mr. Kelley, both of Pennsylvania, in a colloquial discussion of the history and present position of their State upon the subject of negro suffrage, Mr. Thomas, of Maryland, addressed the House. After setting forth the injustice the passage of the bill would work toward the people of his State, he said : "If I believed that the matter of suffrage was the only mode to help the negro in his elevation, and the only safeguard to his protection, or guarantee to his rights, I would be Avilling to give it to him now, subject to proper qualifications and restrictions. But I am honest in my conviction that, uneducated and ignorant as he is, a slave from his birth, and subject to the will and caprice of his master, with none of the exalted ideas of what that privi- lege means, and with but a faint conception of the true position he now occupies, the negro is not the proper subject to have con- ferred upon him this right. I believe if it is given to him, that in localities where his is the majority vote, parties will spring up, each one bidding higher than the other for his ballot, and that in the end the negro-voting element will be controlled by a few evil and wicked politicians, and as something to be bought and sold as freely as an article of merchandise. I am satisfied of another fact, from my experience of the Southern negro, that if they are ever allowed to vote, the shrewd politician of the South, who has been formerly his master, will exert more influence over his vote than all the exhortations from Beecher or Cheever. 30 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRE& "It is a Dotorious fact that the Southern planter maintained his political influence over the poor white man of the South, use the poor white man was dependent on him for his living and support. And you will find, when it i- t . >< » late, that the Southern planter will maintain the same political influence over the poor, uneducated, ignorant, and dependent African, even t<> :i greater extent than he formerly exercised over what used to he called the ' poor white trash.' '•Mr. Speaker, let us not, because we have t; jority here to-day, pass upon measures which, if we were evenly divided. we would hesitate to pass. Let us not. because we are called radical-, strike at the roots of society, and of the great social and political systems that have existed for over a century, and attempt to do in a day, without any preparation, what, to do well and safely, will require years of patience on the part of the freed- i,h n. and earnest, honesl exertions to elevate, improve, and edu- cate on our part. Let us look at this question a- statesmen, not as partisans. Let us not suppose that the parties of to-day will have a perpetual existence, and that because the negro, freed and emancipated by us, would naturally vote on the side of hi- deliv- erer to-day, that it i- any guarantee, when new parties are formed and a competition arises, that the whole or the major part of his vote will he cast on the right side. White men ami black men arc liable to the same infirmities. "Let ns rather, sir. rejoice at what has been already done for him, and he content to watch his future. Lei ns help to i levate and improve him. not only in education, hut in morals. Let us to it that he i- not only protected in all his rights of person and of property, hut let us insist that the amplest guarantees -hall he given. Let us wait until the great problem the African i- now working out ha- been finished, and we find that he thor- oughly comprehends and will not* abuse what he ha- got, before we attempt to confer other privileges, which, when once granted, i .ii never be taken from him. Sir, let it not be forgotten that 'revolution- never go backward;' and if you ever confer this right "U the negro, and find it will not work well, that you have been i<>" hasty, that you should have waited awhile longer, you will find it i- too late, and that, once having possessed it. they will not part with it excepl with their lives." DISTR TC T OF COL UMB1. 1. 81 On the 17th of January the debate was resumed by Mr. Dar- ling, of New York, who remarked: -What public necessity exists fur the passage of this hill at this time? There are no benefits which the colored people of this District could attain by the exercise of the right of suffrage that Congress could not bestow. Our right and power to legis- late for this District are unquestioned, and instead of wasting days and weeks over a question which is exciting bitter feeling among our own people, had we not better give our attention to matters of great national interest which so urgently demand speedy action on our part? Let us pass laws for the education of the people of this District, and fit them ultimately to receive the elective franchise; or, if any thing is required to satisfy the intense desire, manifested by some gentlemen of this House, to bestow the franchise on those not now possessed of it, give it to every soldier who served in the Union Army and was honorably discharged, whether old or young, rich or poor, native or foreign- born, white or black, and show to the world that the American people, recognizing the services and sufferings of their brave defenders, give them, as a recognition, the highest and best gift of American citizenship. "If I know myself, I know that no unjust or unmanly preju- dice warps my judgment or controls my action on any matter of legislation affecting the colored race on this continent. I believe in their equality of rights before the law with the domi- nant race. I believe in their rights of life, liberty, and the pur- suit of happiness. And yet I believe that, before w< confer upon them the political right of suffrage, as contemplated by the bill now under consideration, we should seek to elevate their social condition, and lift them up from the depths of degradation and ignorance in which many of them are left by the receding waves of the sea of rebellion. There are many strong objections to conferring upon the colored men of this District the gift of un- qualified suffrage without any qualification based on intelligence. The large preponderance which they possess numerically will inevitably lead to mischievous results. Neither would I entirely disregard the views of the people of this District, many of whom I know to be sound, loyal Union men. " But I do not wish to see the Union party take any step in this direction from which they may desire hereafter to recede. 6 Til E Til I R 7 J '-. \ 7. V 77/ ro.\ 7/ R ESS. Let us first rather seek to enlighten this people, and educate them to know the value of the great gift of liberty which has been bestowed upon them; teach them to know that to labor is for their best interests; teach them to learn and lead virtuous and industrious lives, in order to make themselves respected, and encourage them to act as becomes freemen. Then they will vote intelligently, and not be subject to the control of designing men. who would seek to use them for the attainment of their own selfish ends. " Now. Mr. Speaker, in conclusion I desire to say that, as ii" election will take place in this District until next June, then' can he no reason lor special haste in the passage of this hill, and that there is a proposition before this House, which seems to he received with very general favor, to create a commission for the govern- ment of this city ; and. in order to give an opportunity to mature a hill for that purpose, and have it presented for the considera- tion of this House, I move the postponement of the [lending hill until the first Tuesday in April next." At a previous stage of the discussion of this measure, Mr. Hale had proposed amendments to the hill. These amendments were now the subject under discussion. They were in the following words: "Amend the motion to recommit by adding to that motion an instruction to the committee to amend the hill so as to extend the right of suffrage in the District of Colombia to all persons coming within either of the following classes, irrespective of caste or color, but subject only to existing provisions and qualifications other than those founded on caste or color, to wit: "1. Those who can read the Constitution of the United States "2, Those who are assessed for and pay taxes on real or personal property within the District. " 3. Those who have served in and Keen honorably discharged from the military or naval service of the United States. \nd to restrict such right of suffrage to the classes above named, and to include proper provisions excluding from the right of suffrage those who have borne arms against the United States during the late rebellion, or given aid and comfort to said rebellion At the close of Mr. Darling's remarks, in which he had moved to postpone the whole subject, Mr. Hale, of New York, having argued at considerable length in favor of the several clauses of his proposed amendment, remarked: "Of the details of my amendment I am by no means tenacious. I do not expect to DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. S3 bring every member of the House, or even every member on this side of the House, to concur in all my own views. I desire sim- ply to put my measures fairly before the House, and to advocate them as [ best can. I am ready and willing to yield my own preferences in matters of detail to their better judgment. More than that, I shall not follow the example that has been set by some on this side of the House who oppose my amendment, and who claim to be the peculiar friends of negro suffrage, by pro- claiming that I will adhere to the doctrine of qualified suffrage, and will join our political enemies, the Democrats, in voting down every thing else. No, sir; for one, and I say it with entire frank- ness, I prefer a restricted and qualified suffrage substantially upon the basis that [ have proposed. If the voice of this House be otherwise — if the sentiment of this Congress be that it is more desirable that universal suffrage should be extended to all within this District, then, for one, I say most decidedly I am for it rather than to leave the matter in its present condition, or to disfranchise the black race in this District." Mr. Thayer, of Pennsylvania, spoke as follows: "The propo- sition contained in this bill is a new proposition. It contemplates a change which will be a landmark in the history of this coun- try — a landmark which, if it is set up, will be regarded by the present and future generations of men who are to inhabit this continent with pride and satisfaction, or deplored as one of the gravest errors in the history of legislation. The bill, if it shall become a law, will be, like the law to amend the Constitution by abolishing slavery, the deep foot-print of an advancing civiliza- tion, or the conspicuous monument of an unwise and pernicious experiment. " Much has been said, on the part of those who oppose the bill, on the subject of its injustice to the white inhabitants of the Dis- trict of Columbia. Indeed, the argument on that side of the question is, when divested of all that is immaterial, meretricious, and extravagant, reduced almost entirely to that single position. Abstract this from the excited declamation to which you have listened, and what is left is but the old revolting argument in favor of slavery, and a selfish appeal to prejudice and ignorance. It is insisted that a majority of the white voters of the District are opposed to the contemplated law, that they have recently given a public expression of their opinion against it, and that for 84 THE THIRTY-NINTH. CONGRESS that reason it would be unjust and oppressive in Congress to pass this law. [n my judgment, this is a question not concerning alone the wishes and prejudices of the seven thousand voter- who dwell in this District, but involving, it may be, the honor, thejustic , the ffood faith, and the magnanimity of the greal nation which makes this little spol the central 3eat of it- empire and its power. "If it concerns the honor of the United States thai a certain class of its people, in a portion of it- territory subject to its ex- clusive jurisdiction and control, -hall, in consideration of the change which has taken place in it- condition, and of the fidelity which it has exhibited in the midst of great and - trials, be elevated somewhat above the political degradation which has hitherto been its lot, shall the United States be prevented from the accomplishment of that great and generous purpose by the handful of voters who temporarily encamp under the shadow of the Capitol? Tt may be that the det irmination of a question of so much importance as this belongs rather to the people of th • United Stair-, through their Representatives in Congress assem- bled, than to th" present qualified voter- of this District. Sir, the iield of inquiry is much wider than the District of Columbia, and the problem to he solved one in which not they alone an' in- terested. When Congress determined that the time had come when slavery should lie abolished in this District, and the capital of the nation should no longer he disgraced by it< presence, did it pause in the great work of justice to which it laid it< hand to hear from the mayor of Washington, or to inquire whether the masters would vote for if.' It is not difficult to conjecture what the fate of that greal measure would have been had it- adoption or rejection depended upon the voter- of this District. "Shall we be told, sir, that if the Representatives of the people of twenty-five State- are of the opinion that the law- and insti- tutions which exist in the seat of Government of the United State- ought to he changed, that tiny are not to he changed be- cause a majority of the voters who reside here do not desire that change? Will any man say that the voices of these seven thou- sand voter- are to outweigh the voices of all the constituencies of the United States in the capital of their country? I dismiss this objection, therefore, a- totally destitute of reason or weight. It i- based upon a fallacy so feeble that it is dissipated by the bare touch of the Constitution to it. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 85 "Whatever is the duty of the United States to do, that is for their interest to do. The two great facts written in history by the iron hand of the late war are, first, that the Union is indis- soluble, and second, that human slavery is here forever abolished. From these two facts consequences corresponding in importance with the facts themselves must result: from the former, a more vigorous and powerful nationality; from the latter, the elevation and improvement of the race liberated by the war from bondage, as well as a higher and more advanced civilization in the region where the change has taken place. It is impossible to say that the African race occupies to-day the same position in American affairs and counts no more in weight than it did before the rebell- ion. You can not strike the fetters from the limbs of four mill- ion men and leave them such as yon found them. As wide as is the interval between a freeman and a slave, so wide is the dif- ference between the African race before the rebellion and after the rebellion. Yon can not keep to its ancient level a race which has been released from servitude any more than you can keep back the ocean with your hand after you have thrown down the sea-wall which restrained its impatient tides. Freedom is every- where in history the herald of progress. It is written in the annals of all nations. It is a law of the human race. Ignorance, idleness, brutality — these belong to slavery; they are her natural offspring and allies, and the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Chanler,] who consumed so much time in demonstrating the com- parative inferiority of the black race, answered his own argument when he reminded us that the Constitution recognized the negro only as a slave, and gave us the strongest reason why we should now begin to recognize him as a freeman. Sir, I do not doubl that the negro race is inferior to our own. That is not the ques- tion. You do not advance an inch in the argument after you have proved that premise of your case. You must show that they are not only inferior, but that they are so ignorant and de- graded that they can not be safely intrusted with the smallest conceivable part of political power and responsibility, and that this is the case not on the plantations of Alabama and Missis- sippi, but here in the District of Columbia. Nay. you must not only prove that this is the general character of this population hen', but that this condition i- so universal and unexceptional that you can not allow them to take tin- first step in freedom, 86 THE THIi;T)--.YLYTH CONGRESS. although it may be hedged about with qualifications and condi- tions; for which of you who have opposed this measure on the ground of race has proposed to give the beuefil of it to such as may be found worthy? Not one of you. And this shows that your objection is founded really on a prejudice, although it as- sumes tin' dignity and proportions of an argument. The real question, sir, is, can we afford to be just — nay, if you pie: • . gen- erous — to a race whose shame has beeu washed out in the con- suming tin- of war, and which now stands erect ami equal before the law with our own? Shall we give hope and encouragement t" that race beginning, as it does now for the first time, it- career of freedom, by erecting here in the capital of the republic a ban- ner inscribed with the sacred legend of the elder days, 'All nan are born free and equal?' or shall we unfurl in it- -trad that other banner, with a strange device, around which the dissolving rem- nant- of the Democratic party in this hall are called upon to rally, inscribed with n<> great sentiment of justice or generosity, but bearing upon it- folds the miserable appeal of the demagogue, 'This i- a white man's Government? 5 When you inaugurate your newly-discovered political principle, do not forget to invite the colored troops; beat the assembly; call out the remnants of the one hundred and eighty thousand men who marched with steady step through the flame- and carnage of war. and many of whom hear upon their bodies the honorable sears received in that unparalleled struggle and in your defense, and a- you -end your banner down the line, say to them, 'This i- the reward of a gen- erous country for the wounds you have received and the sufferii you have endured.' "Shall we follow the great law to which 1 have referred — the law that liberty is progress— and conform our policy to the spirit of thai greal law'.' or -hall we. governed by unreasonable and selfish prejudices, initiate a policy which will make this race our hereditary enemy, a mine beneath instead of a buttress to the edifice which you are endeavoring to repair? Sir, 1 do not hesi- tate to say that, in my opinion, it were better to follow where conscience and justice point, leaving results to a higher Power, than to shrink from an issue which it i- the clear intention of Providence we -hall face, or to be driven from our true course by the chimera- which the excited imaginations of political partisans hav injured up. or by the misty g] i sts of long-buried errors." DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 87 Mr. Van Horn, of New York, while willing to accept the bill as originally presented, preferred it as modified by Mr. Hale's amendments. In his speech he charged those who had opposed the bill as laboring in the interest of slavery. "They seem to have forgotten," he said, " in their advocacy of slavery, that we have passed through a tierce war, begun by slavery, waged against the Government by slavery, and solely in its interest to more thoroughly establish itself upon the Western ( lontinent, and crush out the best interests of freedom and human- ity ; and that this war, guided on our part by the omnipotent arm of the Invisible, made bare in our behalf, has resulted in a most complete overthrow of this great wrong; and by the almost om- nipotent voice of the republic, as now expressed in its fundamental law, it has no right to live, much less entitled to the right of burial, and should have no mourners in the land or going about the street-. Such speeches as those of the gentlemen from Xew Jersey, [Mr. Rogers,] and from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Boyer,] and my colleague and friend, [Mr. ('hauler,] who represents, with myself, in part, the Empire State, carry us back to the days and scenes before the war, when slavery ruled supreme, not only throughout the land, by and through its hold upon power, which the people in an evil hour had given it, but here in these halls of legislation, where liberty and its high and noble ends ought to have been secured by just and equal laws, and the great and paramount object of our system of government carried out and fully developed. They seem to forget that liberty and good government have been on trial during these five years last past of war and blood, and that they have succeeded in the mighty struggle. They forget that Provi- dence, in a thousand ways, during this fierce conflict, has given us evidence <>f his favor, and led us out of the land of bondage into a purer and higher state of freedom, where slavery, as an institu- tion among us, is no more. Why do they labor so long and so ardently to resurrect again into life this foul and loathsome thing ? Why can not they forget their former love and attachments in this direction, and no longer cling with such undying grasp to this dead carcass, which, by its corruptions and rottenness, lias well nigh heretofore poisoned them to the death? Why not awake to the new order of things, and accept the results which God has worked out in our recent struggle, and not raise the weak arm of flesh to render null and void what has thus been done, and 88 THE 77////7T-.\7.\77/ COXGRES thus attempt to turn back the flow of life which is overspread- ing all, and penetrating every part of the body politic with its noble purposes and exalted hopes? Thursday, Jauuary 18, was die last day of the discussion of this important measure in the House of Representatives. When the subject was in order, Mr. Clarke of Kansas, "as the only Representative upon the floor of a State whose whole history had been a continual protest against political injustice and wrong," after having advocated the bill by arguments drawn from the history of the country and the record of the oegro race, remarked as follows: "This cry of poverty and ignorance is not new. 1 remember that those who first followed the Son of man, the Savior of the world, were not the learned rabbis, not the enlightened scholar, not the rich man or the pious Pharisee. They were the poor and needy, the peasant and the fisherman. I remember, also, that the more learned the slaveholder, the greater the rebel. I remember that no black skin covered so false a heart or misdirected brain, that when the radiant banner of our nationality was near or before him, he did not understand its meaning, and remained loyal to its demands. The man capable of taking care of himself, of wife and children, and, in addition to his unrequited toil, to hold up his oppressor, musl have intelligence enough, in the Ion- run, to wield the highest means of protection we can give. " But, sir, it is for our benefit, as well as for the benefit of the proscribed class, that I vote for and support impartial manhood suffrage in this District. We can not afford, as a nation, to keep any class ignorant or oppress the weak. W'c must establish here republican government. That which wrongs one man. in the end recoils on the many. Sir. if we accept, as the Republican party of the Union, our true position and our duty, we shall nobly win. If we are false and recreant, we shall miserably fail. Let us have faith in the people and the grand logic of a mighty revolution, and dare to do right. Class legislation will he the inevitable result of class power j ami what would follow. SO far as the col- ored race are concerned, lei the recenl tragedy of Jamaica answer. "The principles involved in the arguments put forth on the other side of the House are not alone destructive to the rights of the defenseless, intelligent, and patriotic colored men of this District, Inn they militate with a double effect and stronger pur- pose against the poor whites of the North and of the South, against DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. SO the German, the Irishman, and the poor and oppressed of every race, \x\\o come to our shores to escape the oppression of despotic governments, and to seek the protection of a Government the true theory of which reposes in every citizen a portion of its sovereign power. A.gainst this attempt to deny or abridge in any way the rights of* the weak, the poor, and the defenseless, and to transfer the governing power of the nation to the favored classes, to the rich and the powerful, and thus change the very purpose and principles of our republican system, I protest in the name of con- stitutional freedom, and in behalf of equal rights and equal laws. "I protest against this stealthy innovation upon popular rights, in the name of the toiling millions of the land; and I warn the House and the country of the untold mischief and disaster which must come to distract and divide the republic in the future, if we follow the pernicious and destructive doctrines founded upon either the prejudices of class, caste, wealth, or power. I protest in the name of a constituency whose early history was a sublime and persistent struggle against the prejudices of pampered and arro- gant ruffianism at home, and the worse than ruffian spirit of the Administrations of Pierce and Buchanan, and the Democratic! traitors who at that time constituted a majority of this House, and were engaged in preparing the nation for its harvest of blood. We must go back to the spirit and purposes of the founders of our Government. We must accept the grand logic of the mighty revolution from which we are now emerging. We must repudi- ate, now and forever, these assaults upon the masses of the people and upon the fundamental principles of popular rights. I accept in their full force and effect the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and by constitutional amendment and law of Con- gress I would stamp them with, irrevocable power upon the polit- ical escutcheon of the new and regenerated republic. I would avoid the mistakes of the past, and I would spurn that cringing timidity by which, through all history, liberty has been sacrificed and humanity betrayed. " Sir, I hesitate not to say that if we do not gather up, in the process of national reconstruction, the enduring safeguards of future peace, we shall be false to our history and unmindful of the grand responsibilities now devolving upon us. The establishment his duty; and while I make no suggestion as tu the duty of other men, I have a clear perception <>i' my own. And, first, we are bound in treat the colored people <>f this District, in regard to tit" matter of voting, precisely as we treat white people. And I do not hesitate to express the opinion that if the question here to-day were whether any qualification should be imposed upon white voters in this District, if they alone were concerned, tins House would not. ay, not ten men upon this floor would, consider whether any qualifications should he imposed or not. "Reading and writing, or reading, as a qualification, i> de- manded, and an appeal is made to the example of Massachusetts. 1 wish gentlemen who now appeal to Massachusetts would often appeal to her in other matters where I can more conscientiously approve her policy. But it i- a different proposition in Massa- chusetts as a practical measure. When, ten years ago, this <|iiali- fication was imposed upon the people of Massachusetts, it excluded no person who was then a voter. For two centuries we have had in Massachusetts a system of public instruction open to the chil- dren of the whole people without money and without price. Thereforelall the people there had had opportunities for education. Now. why should the example of such a state he quoted to justify refusing suffrage to men who have been denied the privilege of education, and whom it has been a crime to teach? Is there n i difference? •' We are to answer tor our treatment of the colored people of this country, and it will prove in the end impracticable to secure tu men of color civil rights unless the persons who claim those rights arc fortified by the political right of voting. With the right of voting, every thing that a man ought to have or enjoy of civil rights comes to him. Without the right to vote, he i- secure in uothing. I can not consent, after all theguardsand safeguards which may he prepared for the defense of the colored men in the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 03 enioyment of their rights — I can not consent that they shall be deprived of the right to protect themselves. One hundred and eighty-six thousand of them have been in the army of tin; United State.-. They have stood in the place of our sons and brothers and friends. They have fallen in defense of the country. They have earned the right to share in the Government; and if you deny them the elective franchise, I know not how they are to be protected. Otherwise you furnish the protection which is given to the lamb when lie is commended to the wolf. "There is an ancient history that a sparrow pursued by a hawk took refuge in the chief assembly of Athens, in the bosom of a member of that illustrious body, and that the senator in anger hurled it violently from him. It fell to the ground dead, and such was the horror and indignation of that ancient but not Christianized body — men living in the light of nature, of rea- son — that they immediately expelled the brutal Areopagite from his seat, and from the association of humane legislators. kt What will be said of us, not by Christian, but by heathen nations even, if, after accepting the blood and sacrifices of these men, we hurl them from us and allow them to be the victims of those who have tyrannized over them for centuries? I know of no crime that exceeds this; I know of none that is its parallel; and if this country is true to itself, it will rise in the majesty of its strength and maintain a policy, here and evory-where, by which the rights of the colored people shall be secured through their own power — in peace, the ballot; in war, the bayonet. "It is a maxim of another language, which we may well apply to ourselves, that where the voting register ends the military ro- tor of rebellion begins; and if you leave these four million people to the care and custody of the men who have inaugurated and car- ried on this rebellion, then you treasure up for untold years the elements of social and civil war, which must not only desolate and paralyze the South, but shake this Government to its very founda- tion." Soon after the close of Mr. Boutwell's speech, Mr. Darling's motion to postpone and Mr. Hale'.- motion to amend having been rejected, a vote was taken on the bill as reported by the commit- tee. The bill passed by a vote of one hundred and sixteen in the affirmative — fifty-four voting in the negative. The friends of the measure having received evidence that it QJj, THE THIRT1 '-XI. \ ' TH C03\ 'G R E& 5 would not meet with Executive approval, and not supposing that a vote of two-thirds could be secured for it- passage over the President's veto, determined not to urge it immediately through the Senate. There was great reluctance on the part of many Senators and members of the House to come to an open rupture with the President. They desired to defer the day of final and irrecon- cilable difference between Congress and the Executive, [f the subject of negro suffrage in the District of Columbia was kept in abeyance for a time, it was hoped that the President's approval might meanwhile be secured to certain great measures for pro- tecting the helpless and maintaining the civil rights of citizens. To accomplish these important ends, the suffrage bill was deterred many months. The will of the majority in Congress relating to this subject did not become a law until after the opening of the second session of the Thirty-ninth Congress. TEE FREEDMEN. 05 CHAPTER V. THE FREEDMEN. Necessities of the Freedmen — Committee in the House — Early move- ment by the Senate in behalf of Freedmex — Senator Wilson's Bill — Occasion for it — Mr. Cowan moves its reference — Mr. Reverdy John- son ADVISES DELIBERATION A QUESTION OF TIME WITH Mr. SHERMAN Mr. Trumbull promises a more efficient bill — Mr. Sumner presents proof of the bad condition of affairs in the South — Mr. Cowan and Mr. Stewart produce the President as a witness for the defense — Mr. Wilson on the testimony — "Conservatism" — The bill absorbed in greater measures. THE necessities of three millions and a half of persons made free as a result of the rebellion demanded early and efficient legislation at the hands of the Thirty-ninth Congress. In vain did the Proclamation of Emancipation break their shackles, and the constitutional amendment declare them free, if Congress should not "enforce" these important acts by "appropriate legis- lation." The House of Representatives signified its view of the impor- tance of this subject by constituting an able Committee "on Freedmen," with Thomas D. Eliot, of Massachusetts, as its chair- man. The Senate, however, was first to take decided steps toward the protection and relief of freedmen. We have seen that on the first day of the session Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, intro- duced a bill "to maintain the freedom of the inhabitants in the States declared in insurrection and rebellion by the proclamation of the President of the 1st of July, 1862," of which the following is a copy: Be it enacted, etc., That all laws, statutes, acts, ordinances, rules and regu- lations, of any description whatsoever, heretofore in force or held valid in any of the States which were declared to be in insurrection and rebellion by nr; Til/-: THIRTY-NINTH CONGREh the proclamation of the President of t li • • 1st of July, 1862, whereby or wherein any inequality of civil rights and immunities anion:: the inhabitants of -aid Stat.- is recognized, authorized, established, or maintained, by reason or in consequence of any distinctions or differences of color, rare, or descent, or by reason or in consequence of a previous condition or status of Blavery or involuntary servitude of such inhabitants, be, and are hereby, declared null and void : and it shall be unlawful to institute, make, ordain, or establish, in any of the aforesaid States declared to be in insurrection and rebellion, any such law, statute, act, ordinance, rule, or regulation, or to enforce, or to attempt to enforce, the Bame 1. And h itfxirther enacted^ That any person who shall violate either of the provisions of this act shall be deemed guilty <>t' a misdemeanor, and shall he punished by a tine of not less than $500 nor exceeding $10,000, and l.v imprisonment nor less than six months nor exceeding five years; and it shall he the duty of the President to enforce the provisions of this act On tlir 13th of December, Mr. Wilson called up his hill, which the Senate proceeded to consider as in Committee d grant that the high-raised expectations of these loyal and deserted people may not ho blasted. ( rod forbid that we should violate our plighted faith." Mr. Cowan moved the reference of the bill to the Committee on the Judiciary, but its author was unwilling that it should he so referred, since it was highly important that action should he had upon it before the holidays. Mr. Johnson -aid that the hill gave rise to grave questions on which it was very desirable that the deliberation of the Senate Id he very calmly advised. He objected on the ground of THE FREE DM EX. 97 its indefiniteness : "There are no particular laws designated in the bill to be repealed. All laws existing before these States got into a condition of insurrection, by which any difference or ine- quality is created or established, are to be repealed. What is to be the effect of that repeal upon such laws as they exist'.' In some of those States, by the constitution or by the laws, (and the constitution is equally a law.) persons of the African race are ex- cluded from certain political privileges. Are they to be repealed, and at once, by force of that repeal, are they to be placed exactly upon the same footing in regard to all political privileges with that which belongs to the other class of citizens? Very many of those laws are laws passed under the police power, which has always been conceded as a power belonging to the States — laws supposed to have been necessary in order to protect the States themselves from insurrection. Are they to be repealed absolutely? "No man feels more anxious certainly than I do that the rights incident to the condition of freedom, which is now as I person- ally am glad to believe, the condition of the black race, should not be violated ; but T do not know that there is any more press- ing need for extraordinary legislation to prevent outrages upon that class, by any thing which i< occurring in the Southern States, than there is for preventing outrages in the loyal States. Crimes are being perpetrated every day in the very justly-esteemed State from which the honorable member conies. Hardly a paper fails to give us an account of some most atrocious and horrible crime. Murders shock the sense of that community and the sense of the United States very often; and it is not peculiar to Massachusetts. Moral by her education, and loving freedom and hating injustice as much as the people of any other State, she yet is unable to pre- vent a violation of every principle of human rights, but we are not for that reason to legislate for her." Mr. Wilson replied: "The Senator from Maryland says that cruelties and great crimes are committed in all sections of the country. I know it ; but we have not cruel and inhuman law- to be enforced. Sir, armed men are traversing portions of the rebel States to-day enforcing these black laws upon men whom we have made free, and to whom we stand pledged before man and God to maintain their freedom. A few months ago these freedmen were joyous, hopeful, confident. To-day they are distrustful, silent, and sad, and this condition has grown out of the wrongs and 7 98 THI-: Till A* 7' J-. VAN 77/ CONGRESS. cruelties and oppressions that have been perpetrated upon them." Mr. Sherman said: "1 believe it is the duty of Congress to give to the freedmen of the Southern States ample protection in all their natural rights. With me it is a question simply of time and manner. I submit to the Senator of Massachusetts whether this is the time for the introduction of this bill. 1 believe it would be wiser to postpone all action upon this subject until the proclamation of the Secretary of State shall announce that the constitutional amendment is a part of the supreme law of the land. When that is done, there will then be, in my judgment, no doubt of the power of Congress to pass this bill, and to make it definite and general in its terms. •• Then, as I have said, it is a question of manner. When thi< question comes to be legislated upon by Congress, I do not wish it to be left to the uncertain and ambiguous language of this bill. T think that the rights which we desire to secure to the freedmen of the South should be distinctly specified. "The language of this bill is not sufficiently definite and dis- tinct to inform the people of the United States of precisely the character of rights intended to be secured by it to the freedmen of the Southern States. The bill in its terms applies only to those States which were declared to be in insurrection; and the same criticism would apply to this part of it that I have already made, that it is not general in its term-." Mr. Trumbull made some remarks of great significance, as fore- shadowing important measures soon to occupy the attention of Congress and the country: "I hold that under thai second section Congress will have the authority, when the constitutional amendment is adopted. not only to pass the bill of the Senator from Massachusetts, but a bill that will be much mure efficient to protect the freedman in \\\< rights. We may, if deemed advisable, continue the Freed- man's Bureau, clothe it with additional powers, and, if necessary, back it up with a military force, to see that the right- of the men made free by the first clause of the constitutional amendment are protected. And. sir, when the constitutional amendment shall have been adopted, it" the information from the South be that the men whose liberties are secured by it arc deprived of the privilege to go and come when they please, to buy and sell when they THE FBMEDMEM. 99 please, to make contracts and enforce contracts, I give notice that, if no one else does, I shall introduce a bill, and urge its passage through Congress, that will secure to those men every one of these rights: they would not be freemen without them. It is idle to say that a man is free who can not go and come at pleasure, who can not buy and sell, who can not enforce his rights. These arc rights which the first clause of the constitutional amendment meant to secure to all." On a subsequent day, December 20, 1865, when this subject A\as again before the Senate, Mr. Sumner spoke in its favor. Re- ferring to the message of the President on the " Condition of the Southern States," the Senator said: " When I think of what occurred yesterday in this chamber ; when I call to mind the attempt to whitewash the unhappy con- dition of the rebel States, and to throw the mantle of official ob- livion over sickening and heart-rending outrages, where human rights are sacrificed and rebel barbarism receives a new letter of license, I feci that I ought to speak of nothing else. I stood here years ago, in the days of Kansas, when a small community was surrendered to the machinations of slave-masters. I now stand here again, when, alas ! an immense region, with millions of peo- ple, has been surrendered to the machinations of slave-masters. Sir, it is the duty of Congress to arrest this fatal fury. Congress must dare to be brave ; it must dare to be just." After having quoted copiously from the great Russian act by which the freedom given to the serfs by the Emperor's proclama- tion " was secured," and having emphasized them as examples for American legislation, Mr. Sumner said: " Mv colleague is clearly right in introducing his bill and press- ing it to a vote. The argument for it is irresistible. It is essen- tial to complete emancipation. Without it emancipation will be only half done. It is our duty to see that it is wholly done. Slavery must be abolished not in form only, but in substance, so that there shall be no black code^ but all shall be equal before the law." He then read extracts from letters and documents, showing the hostile sentiments of the people, and the unhappy condition of the colored population in nearly all of the rebel States, and closed by saying: "I bring this plain story to a close. I regret that I have been constrained to present it. I wish it were otherwise. 100 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS But I should have tailed in duty had I failed to speak. S A in »er, not in vengeance, not in harshness have I spoken; but solemnly, carefully, and for the sake of my country and human- . thai peace and reconciliation may again prevail. 1 have spoken especially for the loyal citizens who are new trodden down by rebel power. Yon Lave before you the actual condition of tin- rebel Stat You have heard the terrible testimony. The blood curdles at the thought of such enormities, and espe- cially at the thought that the poor freedraen, to whom we owe protection, arc left to the unrestrained will of such a people smarting with defeat, and ready to wreak vengeance upon thi - representatives of a true loyalty. In the name of God let us protect them. Insist upon guarantees. Pass the lull now under consideration; pass any hill; hut do not let this crying injustice rage anv longer. An avenging God can not sleep while such things find countenance. If von are not readv to he the M of an oppressed people, do not become its Pharaoh." Mr. Cowan rebuked the Senator from Massachusetts for apply- ing the term " whitewash" to the message of the President. He then charged Mr. Sumner with reading from "anonymous letter- writers, from cotton agents, and people of that kind," and placed against them "the testimony of the President of the United - ites, not a summer soldier, or a sunshine patriot, who was .-• Union man, and who was in favor i^ the Union at a time and in a place when there was some merit in it. He then pro- eded to read extracts from the President's message and General Grant's report. <)n a subsequent day, Mr. Stewart, of Nevada, made a speech in opposition to the position- assumed by Mr. Sumner. He de- clared his opinion that "if the great mass of the people of the Smith are capable <>f the atrocities attributed to them by the lOnymous witnesses paraded before this Senate, then a union i • these States is impossible; then hundreds and thousand- of the bravest and best of our laud. have fallen to no purpose; then every house, from the gulf to the lakes, is draped in mourning without an object; then three thousand million- of indebtedness hangs like a pall upon the pride and prosperity of the people, only to admonish us that the war was wicked, useless, and cruel." After making the remark, " En judging of testimony upon THE FREEDMEN. 101 ordinary subject.-, we take into consideration not only the facts stated, but the character and standing of the witness, his means of information, and last, but not least, his appearance upon the stand," Mr. Stewart thus spoke in behalf of the principal wit- ness relied upon in the defense of the South: "In this great cause, the Senate properly called upon the chief Executive of the nation for information. Was he a witness whose character and standing before the country would entitle his testimony to con- sideration? Let the voice of a great people, who have indorsed his patriotism and administration, answer. Were his means of information such as to entitle him to speak advisedly upon this subject? Let the machinery of the Government, that collects facts from every department, civil and military, upon the table of the Executive, answer. Was not his appearance before the public, in communicating this testimony to the Senate and the country such as to remove all grounds of suspicion? Let the exalted tone, bold and fearless statement, pure and patriotic spirit of both his messages be his best vindication." The Senator's remarks were principally directed in opposition to the policy of regarding the rebel States as "conquered terri- tories." He finally remarked: "I wish to be distinctly under- stood as not opposing the passage of the bill. I am in favor of legislation on this subject, and such legislation as shall secure the freedom of those who were formerly slaves, and their equality before the law; and I maintain that it can be fully secured with- out holding the Southern States in territorial subjugation." Mr. Wilson replied: "The Senator who has just addressed us questions the testimony adduced here by my colleague yesterday. He might as well question the massacre at Fort Pillow, and the cruelties perpetrated at Andersonville, where eighty-three per cent, of the men who entered the hospitals died — Andersonville, where more American soldiers lie buried than fell throughout the Mexi- can war; where more American soldiers lie buried than were killed in battle of British soldiers in Wellington's four great bat- tles in Spain, and at Waterloo, Alma, Inkermann, and Sebastopol. The Senator might as well question the atrocities of sacked Law- rence and other atrocities committed during the war. If he will go into the Freedman's Bureau, and examine and study the offi- cial records of officers who, for five or six months, have taken testimony and have large volumes of .-worn facts; if he will go mj THE 77///,'7T-.V/.V77/ CONGRESS. into the office of General Holt, and read the reports there, hia heart and soul will be made sick at the wrongs man does to his fellow-man." The Senator, in the course of his remarks, took occasion to ex- press his opinion of "conservatism:" "Progress is to be made only by fidelity to the great cause by which we have stood dur- ing the pasl four years of bloody war. For twenty-five years we had a conflict of ideas, of words, of thoughts — words and thoughts stronger than cannon-halls. We have had four years of bloody conflict. Slavery, every thing that belongs or pertain- to it. lies prostrate before us to-day, and the foot of a regenerated nation is upon it. There let it lie forever. I hoj>e no word- or thoughts of a reactionary character are to he uttered in either house of Congress. I hope nothing is to be uttered hen' in the name of f conservatism/ the worst word in the English language. If there i< a word in the English language that mean- treachery, servility, and cowardice, it is that word { conservative. 5 It ought never hereafter to be on the lips of an American statesman. Fortwenty years it has stood in America the synonym of meanness and base- ness. I have studied somewhat carefully the political history of' the country during the last fifteen or twenty years, and I have al- ways noticed that when T heard a man prate about being a con- servative :md about conservatism, he was about to do some mean thin [Laughter.] I never knew it to l'ail : in fact, it is about the first word a man utter- when he begins to retreat." Mi-. Wilson declared his motives in proposing this hill, and vet cheerfully acquiesced in its probable fate : "Having read hun- dred- of pages of records and of testimony, enough to make the heart ami soul sick, I proposed this hill a- a measure of humanity. I desired, before we entered on tin' great questions of public pol- icy, that we should pass a simple hill annulling these cruel laws; that we should do it early, and then proceed calmly with OUT legislation. That was my motive for bringing this hill into the Senate so early in the session. Many of the difficulties occurring in the rebel Stat.-, between white men and black men, between the old masters and the freedmen, grow out of these laws. They arc executed in various part- of" the States j the military arrest their execution frequently, and the agents of the Fueedmen's Bu- reau sel them aside; and this keep- up a continual conflict. If these obnoxious State laws were promptly annulled, it would con- THE FREEDMEN. 103 tribute much to the restoration of good feeling and harmony, re- lieve public officers from immense labors, and the freedmen from suffering and sorrow; and this, is the opinion of the most expe- rienced men engaged in the Freedmen's Bureau. I have had an opportunity to consult with and to communicate with many of the agents of the Bureau, with teachers, officers, and persons who understand the state of affairs in those States. "But, sir, it is apparent now that the bill is not to pass at pres- ent ; that it must go over for the holidays at any rate. The con- stitutional amendment has been adopted, and I have introduced a bill this morning based upon that amendment, which has been referred to the committee of which the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Trumbull] is chairman. This bill will go over; possibly it will not be acted upon at all. We shall probably enter on the discussion of the broader question of annulling all the black laws in the country, and putting these people under the protection of humane, ecpial, and just laws." The presentiment of the author of the bill was realized. The bill never saw the light as a law of the land. Nor was it need- ful that it should. It contributed to swell the volume of other and more sweeping measures. 104 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. CHAPTER VI. THE Kill EDMEN'S BUREAU HILL IN THE SENATE. THE BILL INTRODUCED AM) REFERRED TO J UDICIARY COMMITTEE — Its PROVIS- IONS — Argument of Mr. Hendricks against it — Reply of Mb Trum- bull — Mr. "'.iwan's amendment — Mr. Guthrie wishes to rbldsve Kentucky from the operation of the bill — Mr, Crbswell desires mat Maryland may enjoy the benefits of the uii.i. — Mb. Cowan's GRATITUDE To GOD AND FRIENDSHIP FOR THE NEGRO — REMARKS BY Mr Wilson — "The shout gentleman's long speech" — Yeas and nays — Insulting title. ON the 19th of December Mr. Trumbull gave notice that "ou some curly day" he would "introduce a bill to enlarge the powers of tlic Freedmen's Bureau so as i" secure freedom to all persons within the United States, and protect every individual in the Cull enjoyment of the rights of person and property, and furnish him with means for their vindication." Of the introduc- tion of this measure, he said it would be done "in view of the adoption of the constitutional amendmenl abolishing slavery. 1 have never doubted that, on the adoption of that amendment, it would be competent for Congress to protect every person in the United States in all the rights of person and property belonging tu a free citizen ; and to secure these rights is the object of the bill which 1 propose i" introduce. 1 think it important that action should be taken on this subject at an early day, for the purpose of quieting apprehensions in the mind- of man) friends of free- dom, lest by local legislation or a prevailing public sentiment in some of the State.-, pi rsons <>f' the African race should continui i" be oppressed, and, in fact, deprived of their freedom ; and tin- the purpose, also, of showing to those among whom slavery has here- tofore existed, that unless by local legislation they provide for the real freedom of their Conner -lave-, the 1". d. ral Government will, THE FREEDMEN. 105 by virtue of its own authority, see that they arc fully pro- tected." On the 5th of January, 1866, the first day of the session of Congress after the holidays, Mr. Trumbull obtained leave to in- troduce a bill "to enlarge the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau." Tlu' bill was read twice by its title, and as it contained provisions re- lating to the exercise of judicial functions by the officers and agents of the Freedmen's Bureau, under certain circumstances, in the late insurgent States, it was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. On the 11th of January Mr. Trumbull reported the bill from the Judiciary Committee, to whom it had been referred, with some amendments of a verbal character. On the following day these amendments were considered by the Senate, in Committee of the Whole, and adopted. The consideration of the bill as amended was deferred to a subsequent day. The bill provided that " the act to establish a Bureau for the relief of Freedmen and Refugees, approved March 3, 1865, shall continue until otherwise provided for by law, and shall extend to refugees and freedmen in all parts of the United States. The President is to be authorized to divide the section of country containing such refugees and freedmen into districts, each contain- ing one or more States, not to exceed twelve in number, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint an as- sistant commissioner for each district, who shall give like bond, receive the same compensation, and perform the same duties pre- scribed by this act and the act to which it is an amendment. The bureau may, in the discretion of the President, be placed under a commissioner and assistant commissioners, to be detailed from the army, in which event each officer so assigned to duty is to serve without increase of pay or allowances. " The commissioner, with the approval of the President, is to divide each district into a number of sub-districts, not to exceed the number of counties or parishes in each State, and to assign to each sub-district at least one agent, either a citizen, officer of the army, or enlisted man, who, if an officer, is to serve without ad- ditional compensation or allowance, and if a citizen or enlisted man, is to receive a salary not exceeding §1,500 per annum. Each assistant commissioner may employ not exceeding six clerks, one of the third class and five of the first class, and each agent of a sub-district may employ two clerks of the first class. 106 THE THIRT1-.yr.XTH CONGRESS. The President of the United State-, through the War Department and the commissioner, is to extend military jurisdiction and pro- tectioD over all employes, agents, and officerB of the bureau, and the Secretary of War may direel such issues of provisions, cloth- ing, fuel, and other supplies, including medical stores and trans- portation, and afford such aid, medical or otherwise, a- he may deem needful for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen, their wives and children, under such rules and regulations a- he may direct. •• [1 is also provided that the President may, for settlemenl in the manner prescribed by section four of the act t<> which this is an amendment, reserve from sale or settlement, under the home- stead or preemption laws, public hinds in Florida, Mississippi, and Arkansas^ not to exceed three million acres of good land in all, the rental named in that section to he determined in such manner a- the commissioner -hall by regulation prescribe. It proposes to confirm and make valid the po.-- t — ory title- -ranted in pursuance of Major-General Sherman'- special held order, dated at Savannah, January 16, L865. The commissioner, under the direction of the President, is to be empowered to purchase or rent such tract- of land in the several districts as may be nee -- sary to provide for the indigent refugees and freedmen dependent upon the Governmenl for support; also to purchase sites and buildings for schools and asylums, to be held as United Stal property until the refugees or freedmen shall purchase the same, or they shall be otherwise disposed of by the commissioner. " Whenever in any State or district in which the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has been interrupted by the rebell- ion, and wherein, in consequence of any State or local law, ordi- nance, police or other regulation, custom, or prejudice, any of the civil right- or immunities belonging to white persons (including the right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, -ell, bold, and convey real and personal property, and to have fall and equal hem til of all law- ami proceedings for tlu' security of person and estate), are refused or denied to negroes, mulattoes, freedmen, refugees, or any other persons, on account of race, color, or any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party -hall have been duly convicted, or wherein they or any of them are subjected to any other or different pun- THE FREED MEN. 107 ishment, pains, or penalties, for the commission of any act or offense, than are prescribed for white persons committing like acts or offenses, it is to be the duty of the President of the United States, through the commissioner, to extend military protection and jurisdiction over all cases affecting such persons so discrim- inated against. " Any person who, under color of any State or local law, ordi- nance, police, or other regulation or custom, shall, in any State or district in which the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has been interrupted by the rebellion, subject, or cause to be subjected, any negro, mulatto, freedman, refugee, or other person, on account of race or color, or any previous condition of slavery or involun- tary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, or for any other cause, to the de- privation of any civil right secured to white persons, or to any other or different punishment than white persons are subject to for the commission of like acts or oiFenses, is to be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and be punished by fine not exceeding §1,000 or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both. It is to be the duty of the officers and agents of this bureau to take jurisdiction of and hear and determine all offenses committed against this provision ; and also of all cases affecting negroes, mulattoes, freedmen, refugees, or other persons who are discriminated against in any of the particulars mentioned in this act, under such rules and regulations as the President of the United States, through the War Department, may prescribe. This jurisdiction is to cease and determine whenever the discrimination on account of which it is conferred ceases, and is in no event to be exercised in any State in which the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has not been interrupted by the rebellion, nor in any such State after it shall have been fully restored in all its constitutional re- lations to the United States, and the courts of the State and of the United States within its limits are not disturbed or stopped in the peaceable course of justice." Other business occupying the attention of the Senate, the con- sideration of the Freedman's Bureau Bill was not practically entered upon until the 18th of January. On that day, Mr. Stewart made a speech ostensibly on this bill, but really on the question of reconstruction and negro suffrage, in reply to re- marks by Mr. Wade. on those subjects. 108 THE THIRTY-JflNTR CONGRESS. Mr. Trumbull moved as an amendment to the bill that occupant • oj land under General Sherman's special field order, dated at Sav- annah, January 1*;. L865, should be confirmed in their possessions for the period of three years from the date of said order, and no person should be disturbed in said possession during the said three years unless a settlement should be made with said occupant by the owner satisfactory to the commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau. Mr. Trumbull explained the circumstances under which the freedmen had obtained possessory titles to land- in Georgia, and urged the propriety of their being confirmed by Congress for thn years. I [e said : " 1 should be glad to go further. I would be glad, if we could, to secure to these people, upon any just principle, the fee of this land; but 1 do not see with what propriety we could except this particular traci of country oul of all the other lands in the South, and appropriate it in fee to these parties. I think, having gone upon the land in good faith tinder the protection of the Govern- ment, we may protect them there for a reasonable time; and the opinion of the committee was that three years would he a reason- able time." On the following day, Mr. Hendricks presented his objections to the hill in a speech of considerable length. lie was follow, d by Mr. Trumbull in reply. As both were members of the Judi- ciary Committee from which the hill was reported, and both had carefully considered the reasons for and against the measure, their arguments are given at length. Mr. Hendricks said: " At the last session of Congress the origi- nal law creating that bureau was passed. We were then in the midst of the war; very considerable territory had been brought within the control of the Union troops and armies, and within the scope of that territory, it was said, there were many freedmen who imi-t he protected by a hill of that sort ; and it was mainly upon that argument that the hill was enacted. The Senate was very reluctant to enact the law creating the bureau as it now ex- ists. There was so much hesitancy on tin- part of the Senate, that by a very large vote it refused to agree to the hill reported by the Senator from Massachusetts, [Mr. Sumner. J from a committee of conference, and 1 believe the honorable Senator from [llinois, [Mr. Trumbull,] who introduced this hill, himself voted against that hill; and why? That hill simply undertook to define the power- THE FREEDMEN. 109 and duties of the Freedmen's Bureau and its agents, and the Sen- ate would not agree to confer the powers that that bill upon its face seemed to confer, and it was voted down; and then the law :is it now stands was enacted in general terms. There was very little gained, indeed, by the Senate refusing to pass the first bill and enacting the latter, for under the law as it passed, the Freedmen's Bureau assumed very nearly all the jurisdiction and to exercise all the powers contemplated in the bill reported by the Senator from Massachusetts. "Now, sir, it is important to note very carefully the enlarge- ment of the powers of this bureau proposed by this bill ; and in the first place, it proposes to make the bureau permanent. The last Congress would not agree to this. The bill that the Senate voted down did not limit the duration of the bureau, and it was voted down, and the bill that the Senate agreed to provided that the bureau should continue during the war and only for one year after its termination. That was the judgment of the Senate at the last session. What has occurred since to change the judgment of the Senate in this important matter? What change in the condi- tion of the country induces the Senate now to say that this shall be a permanent bureau or department of the Government, when at the last session it said it should cease to exist within one year after the conclusion of the war ? Why, sir, it seems to me that the country is now, and especially the Southern States are now in better condition than the Senate had reason to expect when the law was enacted. Civil government has been restored in almost all the Southern States; the courts are. restored in many of them; in many localities they are exercising their jurisdiction within their particular localities without let or hinderance ; and why, I ask Senators, shall we make this bureau a perpetual and permanent institution of the Government when we refused to do it at the hast session ? '• I ask Senators, in the first place, if they are now, with the most satisfactory information that is before the body, willing to do that which they refused to do at the last session of Con- gress? We refused to pass the law when it proposed to establish a permanent department. Shall we now, when the war is over, when the States are returning to their places in the Union, when the citizens are returning to their allegiance, when peace and quiet, to a very large extent, prevail over that country, when the 110 THE THIRTY-Xl.YTH CONGRESS <■ i- are reestablished; is the Senate now, with this- information before it, willing to make this a permanent bureau and depart- ment of the ( rovernment '.' "The next proposition of the bill is, that it shall not be confined any longer to the Southern States, but that it shall have a govern- ment <>vcr the States of the North as well as of the South. The old law allowed the President to appoint a commissioner for each of the States that had been declared to be in rebellion— one for each of the eleven seceding States, not to exceed ten in all. This bill provides that the jurisdiction of the bureau -hall extend where- ever, within the limits of the United States, refugees or freedmen have gone. Indiana has not been a State in insurrection, and yet there are thousand- <>t' refugees and freedmen who have g into that State within the last three year-. This bureau is to b come a governing power over the State of Indiana according t<> the provisions of the bill. Indiana, that provide- for her own paupers, Indiana, that provides for the government of her own people, may, under the provisions of this hill, be placed under a government that our fathers never contemplated — a government that must be most distasteful to freemen. "I know it may be said that the bureau will not probably be extended to the Northern States. If it is not intended to !>.• ex- tended to those States, why amend the old law SO as to give this power? When the old law limited the jurisdiction of this bureau to the States that had been declared in insurrection, is it not enough that the bureau should have included one State, the State of Kentucky, over which it had no rightful original jurisdiction? And must we now amend it 80 a- to place all the States of the Union within the power of this irresponsible sub-government? This is one objection that I have to the bill, ami the next is the expense that it must necessarily impose upon the people. We are asked by the Freedmen'- Bureau in its estimates to appropri- ate $11,745,050; nearly twelve million dollars for the support of tin- bureau and to carry on its operation- during the coming year. I will read what he -ay-: "'It i- estimated that the amount required for the expenditures of the bureau for tin- fiscal year commencing January, L866, will be $11, 74;"), 050. The sum is requisite for the following purposes Salaries of assistant and Bub-assistant commissioner* $147,500 Salaries of clerks 82,800 THE FREE DM EN. Ill Stationery and printing 63,000 Quarters and fuel 15,000 Clothing for distribution 1,750.000 Commissary stores 4,106,250 Medical department 500,000 Transportation 1,980,000 School superintendents 21,000 Sites for school-houses and asylums 3,000,000 Telegraphing 18,000 Making in all the sum which I have mentioned. The old svstcm under this law, that was before the commissioner when he made this estimate, requires an expenditure to carry on its opera- tions of nearly twelve million dollars, and that to protect, as it is called, and to govern four millions of the people of the United States — within a few millions of the entire cost of the Government under Mr. Adams's administration, when the population of the States had gone up to many millions. How is it that a depart- ment that has but a partial jurisdiction over the people shall cost almost as much for the management of four million people as it cost to manage the whole Government, for its army, its navy, its legislative and judicial departments, in former years '? My learned friend from Kentucky suggests that the expenses under John Quincv Adams's administration were about thirteen million dollars. What was the population of the United States at that time I am not prepared to state, but it was far above four mill- ions. Now, to manage four million people is to cost the people of the United States, under the law as it stands, nearly as much as it cost the people to manage the whole affairs of the Govern- ment under the administration of Mr. John Quincy Adams. " I hear Senators speak very frequently of the necessity of economy and retrenchment. Is this a specimen, increasing the number of officers almost without limit, and increasing the ex- penditures? I think one might be safe in saying that, if this bill passes, we can not expect to get through a year with less than $20,000,000 of an expenditure for this bureau. But that is a mere opinion ; for no man can tell until we have the number of officers that are to be appointed under the bill prescribed in the bill itself, and this section leaves the largest discretion to the bureau in the appointment of officers. I appeal to Senators to know whether, at this time, when we ought to adopt a system of 112 THE 77/ ////J'-. \ 7. V 77/ CONGRESS. retrenchment and reform, they are willing to pass a bill which will so largely increase the public expenditures. "Then, sir, when tin- army of officers has been organized, the bill provides: ' Ami the President of the United States, through the War Department and the commissioner, shall extend mili- tary jurisdiction and protection over all employes, agents, and officers of this bureau.' •■ Will some Senator be good enough to tell me what that means? If [ndiana be declared a State within which arc found refugees and freedmen, who have escaped from the Southern States, and if Indiana has a commissioner appointed to her, and if in each county of Indiana there be a sub-commissioner at a -alary of $1,500 a year, with two clerks with a salary of |1,200 each, and then the War Department throws over this little army of office-holders in the State of Indiana its protection, what does tlr.it mean".' The people of Indiana have been ground hard under military authority and power within the last three or four years, but it was borne because it was hoped that when the war would hi' closed the military power would he withdrawn from the State. Under this hill it may he established permanently upon the peo- ple by a body of men protected by the military power of the Government. An officer is appointed to the State of Indiana to reeulate the contracts which arc made between the white people and the colored people of that State, and because he holds this oilier, not military in its character, involving no military act whatever, the military throws over him its iron shield of protec- tion. What doe- that mean V If this officer shall do a great wrong and outrage to one of the people, and the wronged citizen appeals to the court for his redress and brings his -nit tor dam- is, does the protecting >hiehl of the War Department prevent the prosecution of that -nit ami the recovery of a judgment? What is the protection that i> thrown over this armj of offioe- holders? Let it he explained. ■ It may be said that this i- a part of the military department. That will depend not bo mucll upon what we call them in the is what arc the duties imposed upon these sub-agents. It i- a Uttle difficult to tell. Thej are to protect the freedmen; they are .,, protect refugees; they are to buy asylums and school- houses; they are to establish schools; they arc to see to the con- LCts that are made between white men and colored men. I THE FREE DM EX. 113 want to know of the chairman of tho committee thai reported this bill, in what respect these duties are military in their character? T can understand one thing-, that it may be regarded as a war upon the liberties of the people, but I am not able to see in what respect the duties of these officers otherwise are military. But this protection is to be thrown over them. I will not occupy longer time upon that subject. " The third section of the bill changes the letter of the law in two respects : first, ' That the Secretary of War may direct such issues of provisions, clothing, fuel, and other supplies, including medical stores and transportation/ etc. Those last words, ' med- ical stores and transportation,' make the change in the law that is proposed, in this bill. But, sir, in point of fact it makes no change in the law; for if you will turn to the report of the com- missioner of this bureau, it will be found that the bureau, during the past six months, has been furnishing medical supplies and transportation. A very large item in the expenditures estimated for is transportation. But I wish to ask of the Senator who framed this bill why we shall now provide for the transportation of freedmen and refugees. During the war, a very large number of refugees came from the Southern States into the North ; but the Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, in his report, says that those refugees have mainly returned, and but few remain now to be carried back from the North to the South, or who de- sire to be. Then why do we provide in this bill for transporta- tion"? Is it simply to give the bureau the power to transport refugees and freedmen from one locality to another at its pleas- ure? The necessitv of carrying them from one section of the country to another has passed away. Is it intended by this bill that the bureau shall expend the people's money in carrying the colored people from one locality in a Southern State to another locality? I ask the Senator from Illinois, when he comes to ex- plain his bill, to tell us just what is the force and purpose of this provision. "The fourth resolution, as amended, provides for the setting apart of three million acres of the public lands in the States of Florida, Mississippi, and Arkansas for homes for the colored people. I believe that is the only provision of the bill in which I concur. I concur in what was said by some Senator yesterday, that it is desirable, if we ever expect to do any thing substantially 8 / / ; 77/ /•; Til I R T 1 -. \ 7. \ 77/ C0. \ G R ESS. for the colored people, to encourage them to obtain homes, and [ :.ni willing to vote for a reasonable appropriation of the public land- for thai purpose. 1 shall not, therefore, occupy time in dis- < u&sing that section. "The fifth section, as amended by the proposition before the Senate, proposes to confirm the possessory right of the colored people upon these land- for three year- from the date of that order, or aboul two years from this time, I like the amendment better than the original l>ill : for the original l>ill hit it entirely uncertain what was confirmed, and of course it is better that we should say one year, or three years, or ten years, than to leave it entirely indefinite for what period we confirm the possession. 1 have no doubt that General Sherman ha do that. In express terms, he said that they should have the right of possession ; for what length of time he did not say, for the reason that he could not say. It was a military pos- session that he conferred, and that possession would last only dur- ing the continuance of the military occupation, and no longer. It' General Sherman, by his General Order No. 15, placed the colored people upon the lands along the coast of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, for a temporary purpose, what was the extent of the possessory right whicli he could confer? He did not undertake to give a title for any defined period, hut -imply the righl of poss -- sion. It i- fair to eon-true his order as meaning only what he could do, giving the righl of possession during military occupancy. Now, sir, the President informs us that the rebellion is suppressed ; that the war i- over: that military law no longer governs in that country; hut that peace i- restored, and that civil law shall now govern. What, then. i- the law upon the subject? A right of possession is given by tin mmanding general to certain persons within that region of country; peace follow.-, and with peace comes hack the right of the real owners to the possession. This possession that the General undertook to give, according to law, could not last longer than the military occupancy. When peace the f ■// /■:/■: i ).\ir:.v. lis comes, the right of the owners return with it. Then how is it that Congress can undertake to say that the property that belongs to A, B, and C, upon the islands and sea-coasl of the South, shall, for two years from this date, not belong to them, hut shall be- long to certain colored people? I want to know upon what principle of law Congress can take the property of one man and give it to another. " I know very well what may he done in the courts by a pro- ceeding for confiscation. I am not discussing that question. If there has been any property confiscated and disposed of under proceedings of confiscation, I do not question the title here. That is purely a judicial question. Bat, sir, I deny that Congress can legislate the property of one man into the possession of another. Tf this section is to pass, I prefer that this confirmation shall be for three years rather than leave it in the uncertain state in which General Sherman's order left it. "The sixth section provides, ' That the commissioners shall, under the direction of the President, procure in the name of the United States, by grant or purchase, such lauds within the districts aforesaid as may be required for refugees and freedmen dependent on the Government for support; and he shall provide, or cause to be erected, suitable buildings for asylums and schools.' Upon what principle can you authorize the Government of the United States to buy lands for the poor people in any State of the Union? They may be very meritorious; their cases may appeal with great force to our sympathies; it may almost appear necessary to prevent suffering that we should buy a home for each poor person in the country; but where is the power of the General Government to do this thins;? Is it true that by this revolution the persons and property of the people have been brought within the jurisdiction of Congress, and taken from without the control and jurisdiction of the States? I have under- stood heretofore that it has never been disputed that the duty to provide for the poor, the insane, the blind, and all who are de- pendent upon society, rests upon the States, and that the power does not belong to the General Government. What has occurred, then, in this war that has changed the relation of the people to the General Government to so great an extent that Congress may become the purchasers of homes for them? Tf we can go so far, I know of no limit to the powers of Congress. Here is a propo- 110 Till-: TfriRTV-.XI.YTH CONGRESS sition to buy :i home for each dependent freeman and refugee. The section is n<>t quite as strong as it might have been. It would have been stronger, I think, in the present state of public sentiment, if the word 'refugee 5 had been left out, and if it had been only for the freedmen, because it does not seem to be so pop- ular now to buy a home for a white man as to buy one for a colored man. But this l>ill authorize- the officers of' the Freedmen's Bureau to buy homes Cor white people an 1 for black people only upon the ground that they are dependent. It' this be the law now, there has come about a startling change in the relation of the States and of the people to the ( reneral < rovernment. I shall be very happy to hear from the learned head of the Judiciary Committee upon what principle it Ls that in any one single cas you may buy a home for any man, whether he be rich or poor. The General Government may buy land when it is necessary for the exercise of any of its powers ; but outside of that, it seems to me. there Ls no power within the Constitution allowing it. "The most remarkable sections of the bill, however, are the seventh ami eighth, and to those sections I will ask the very careful attention of Senators; for I think if we can pass tie - two sections, ami make them a law, then indeed this Government can do any thing. It will be useless to -peak any longer of limitations upon the powers of the General Government; it will he idle to speak of the reserved power of the State-: State rights and State power will have passed away it* we can do what is proposed in the seventh and eighth section- of this hill. \\ e propose, first, to legislate against the effects of ■ local law, ordi- nance, police, or other regulation;' then against 'custom,' ami lastly, against 'prejudice,' and to provide that 'if any of the civil rights or immunities belonging to white person-' are denied t> any person because of color, then that person -hall be taken un- der the military protection of the Government. 1 do not know whether that will he understood to extend to Indiana or not. That will he a very nice point for the bureau to decide, I pre- sume, after the enactment of the law. The section limits its operation to 'any State or district in which the ordinary course of judicial proceediugs has been interrupted by the rebellion.' It will be a little difficult to say whether in the State of Indiana and Ohio the ordinary course of judicial proceeding has or I not been interrupted. We had some war in Indiana: we had a THE FREED MEN. 117 very irrcat raid through that State and some fighting; and I presume that in some cases the proceedings of the courts were interrupted and the courts were unable to go on with their busi- ness, so that it might be said that even in some of the Northern States this provision of the bill would be applicable. Suppose that it were applicable to the State of Indiana, then every man in that State, who attempted to execute the constitution and laws of the State, would be liable for a violation of the law. We do not allow to colored people there many civil rights and immuni- ties which are enjoyed by the white people. It became the policy of the State in 1852 to prohibit the immigration of colored people into that State. I am not going to discuss the question whether that was a wise policy or not. At the time it received the ap- proval of my judgment. Under that constitutional provision, and the laws enacted in pursuance of it, a colored man coming into the State since 1852 can not acquire a title to real estate, can not make certain contracts, and no negro man is allowed to intermarry with a white woman. These are civil rights that are denied, and yet this bill proposes, if they are still denied in any State whose courts have been interrupted by the rebellion, the military protection of the Government shall be extended over the person who is thus denied such civil rights or immunities. "The next section of the bill provides punishments where any of these things are done, where any right is denied to a colored man which under State law is allowed to a white man. The language is very vague, and it is very difficult to say what this section will mean. If it has as broad a construction as is at- tempted to be given to the second section of the constitutional amendment, I would not undertake to guess what it means. Any man who shall deny to any colored man any civil rights secured to white persons, shall be liable to be taken before the officers of this bureau and to be punished according to the pro- visions of this section. In the first place, now that peace is restored, now that there is no war, now that men are no longer under military rule, but are under civil rule, I want to know how such a court can be organized; how it is that the citizen may be arrested without indictment, and may be brought before the officers of this bureau and tried without a jury, tried with- out the forms which the Constitution requires. "But sir, this section i< most objectionable in regard to the ; / $ TR /■: Til I U T ) -. \ 7. \ ' III COJ\ v ; R ESS. offense that it defines. IT any portion of the law oughl to certain, it is that which defines 'Time and prescribes the punish- ment. What is meant by this general expression, 'the depriva- tion of any civil right secured to white persons'?' The agent in one Si ite may construe it to mean one thing, and the agent in another State another thing. It is broad and comprehensive — 'the deprivation of any civil right secured to white persons." That act of deprivation is the crime that is to be punished. Take the case that 1 have just referred to. Suppose a minister, wb called upon, should refuse to solemnize a marriage between a colored man and a white woman because the law of the State forbade it. would he then, refusing to recognize a civil right which i- enjoyed by white persons, be liable to this punisinent? "My judgment is that, under the second section of the consti- tutional amendment, we may pass such a law as will secure the freedom declared in the first section, but that we can not go b yond that limitation. [fa man has been, by this provision of the Constitution, made free from his master, and that mastei undertakes to make him a slave again, we may pass such laws a- are sufficient in our judgment to prevent that act: hut if the Legislature of the State denies to the citizen as he is now called, the fr Iman, equal privileges with the white man. 1 want know if that Legislature, ami each member of thai Legislature, is esponsible to the penalties prescribed in tin- hill'.' It i- not at; act of the old master; it is an act of the State government, which defines ami regulates the civil rights of the people. •■ 1 regard it a- very dangerous legislation. It propos tablish a government within a government— not a republic within a republic, hut a cruel despotism within a republic. In times of peace, in communities that art' quiel ami orderly, ami ibedient to law. it i- proposed to establish a government not responsible to the people, the officers of which arc not selected l>v the people, the officers of which need noi he of the people governed —a governmenl more cruel, more despotic, more danger- ,,i- to the liberties of the people than that against which om forefathers foughl in the Lievolution. There i- nothing that tin men may not do, under this bill, to oppress the people. •'Sir. if we establish courts in the Southern State-, we ought to establish court- that will he on both sides, or on neither side; hut the doctrine now i-, that it' a man is appointed, either to an THE FREEDMEN. 119 executive or a judicial office, in any locality where then- are colored people, he must be on the side of the negro. I have nol heard, since Congress met, that any colored man has done a wrong in this country for many years ; and I have scarcely bean! that any white man coming in contact with colored people has (1 >ne right for a number of years. Every body is expected to take sides for the colored man against the white man. !{' I have to take sides, it will be with the men of my own color and my own race; but I do not wish to do that. Toward these people I hope that the legislation of Congress, within the constitutional powers of Congress, will be just and fair — -just to them and just to the white people among whom they live; that it will promote harmony among the people, and not discord; that it will restore labor to its channels, and bring about again in those States a condition of prosperity and happiness. Do we not all desire that? If we do, is it well for us to inflame our passions and the passions of the people of the North, so that their judgments shall not he equal upon the questions between these races'.' It is all very well for us to have sympathy lor the poor and the unfor- tunate, but both sides call for our sympathy in the South. The master, who, by his wickedness and lolly, has involved himself in the troubles that now beset him, has returned, abandoning his rebellion, and has bent down upon his humble knees and asked the forgiveness of the Government, and to be restored again as a citizen. Can a man go further than that? He has been in many cases pardoned by the Executive. lie stands again as a citizen of the country. " What relation do we desire that the people of the North shall sustain toward these people of the South — one of harmony and accord, or of strife and ill will? Do we want to restore commerce and trade with them, that we shall prosper therein- as well as they, or do we wish permanent strife and division? I want this to be a Union in form, under the Constitution of the United States, and, in fact, by the harmony of the people of the North and of the South. I believe, as General Grant says, that this bureau, especially with the enlarged power- that we propose to confer upon it, will not be an instrument of con ami harmony, but will be one of discord and strife in that - ■ - tion of the country. It can not do good, but, in my judgment, will do much harm." 120 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS Following immediately upon the close of the above argument, Mr, Trumbull made the following reply: " Mr. President, I feel it incumbent on me to reply to some of the arguments presented l>v the Senator from Indiana against this bill. Many of the positions he has assumed will be found, upon examination, to have no foundation in fact. lie has argued against provisions not contained in tin' hill, and he has argued also as it' he were entirely forgetful of the c lition <>f the country and of the great war through which vve have passed. •■ Now, sir, what was the object of the Freednien's Bureau, and why was it established? It was established to look after a larj class of people who, as the results of the war, had been thrown upon the hands ut' the Government, and must have perished but for its fostering care and protection. Does the Senator mean to deny tin' power of this Government to protect people under such circumstances? The Senator must often have voted for appropri- ations to protect other classes of people under like circumstances. Whenever, in the history of the Government, there ha- been thrown upon it a helpless population, which must starve and die Imt tin- its care, the Government has never failed to provide for them. At this very session, within the last thirty day-, both houses of Congress have voted halt' a million dollars to i'ved and clothe people during the present winter. Who were they'.' Many of them were Indian- who had joined the rebellion, and had slain loyal people of the country. Yes, sir, we appropriated money to teed Indian- who had been fighting against us. We did not hear the Senator's voice in opposition to that appropriation. \\ hat were the facts? It was stated by our Indian agents that the In- dian tribes west of Arkansas, a part of whom had joined the rebel armies and some the Union armies, had been driven from their country; that their property had been destroyed; and now, the conflict of arms having ceased, the} had nothing to live upon dur- ing the winter; that they would encroach upon the white settle- ments; that unless provision was made for them, they would rob, plunder, and murder the inhabitants aearest them; and Congress was called upon to appropriate money to buy them food and clothing, and we did ii. We did it for rebels and traitor.-. Were w e not hound to do it '.' Now, sir, we have thrown upon US four million people win- have toiled all their lives i'"V others; who, unlike the Indian.-, THE FREEDMEM. 121 had no property at the beginning of the rebellion; who were never permitted to own any thing, never permitted to eat the bread their own hands had earned; many of whom are without support, in the midst of a prejudiced and hostile population who have been struggling to overthrow the Government. These four million people, made free by the acts of war and the constitu- tional amendment, have been, wherever they could, loyal and true to the Union; and the Senator seriously asks, What author- ity have we to appropriate money to take eare of them? What would he do with them? Would he allow them to starve and die? Would he turn them over to the mercy of the men who, through their whole lives, have had their earnings, to be en- slaved again? It is not the first time that money has been appro- priated to take eare of the destitute and suffering African. For years it has been the law that whenever persons of African de- scent were brought to our shores with the intention of reducing them to shivery, the Government should, if possible, rescue and restore them to their native land; and we have appropriated hun- dreds of thousands of dollars for this object. Can any body deny the right to do it? Sir, humanity as well as the constitutional obligation to suppress the slave trade required it. So now the people relieved by our act from the control of masters who sup- plied their wants that they might have their services, have a right to rely upon us for assistance till they can have time to provide for themselves. " This Freedmen's Bureau is not intended as a permanent in- stitution ; it is only designed to aid these helpless, ignorant, and unprotected people until they can provide for and take care of themselves. The authority to do this, so far as legislative sanc- tion can give it, is to be found in the action of a previous Congress which established the bureau; but, if it were a new question, the authority for establishing such a bureau, in my judgment, is given by the Constitution itself; and as the Senator's whole argument goes upon the idea of peace, and that all the eonsequenecs of the war have ceased, I shall be pardoned, I trust, if I refer to those provisions of the Constitution which, in my judgment, authorize the exercise of this military jurisdiction ; for this bureau is a part of the military establishment not simply during the conflict of arms, but until peace shall be firmly established and the civil tri- the tiiii;t)--m.yth CONGRESS. burials of the country shal] be restored with an assurance that they may peacefully enforce the laws without opposition. "The Constitution of the United States declares that Congress shall have authority 'to declare war and make rule- concerning captures on land and water/ 'to raise and support armies,' 'to provide and maintain a navy,' 'to make rules for the govern- ment and regulation of tin' land and naval forces/ 'to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the law- of the Union, suppress insurrection, and repel invasion, 5 and ' t<> make all 1: - which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers.' It also declares that 'the citizen- of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States,' and that 'the United State- -hall guarantee to every State in the Union a republican form of gov- ernment.' Under the exercise of these power-, the Government has gone through a four years' conflict. It ha.- succeeded in put- ting down armed resistance to it- authority. But did the mili- tary power which was exercised to put down this armed resistance cease the moment the rebel armies were dispersed? Has the Government no authority to bring to punishment the authors of this rebellion after the conflict of arms has ceased? no author- ity to hold as prisoners, it" necessary, all who have been captured with arms in their hands? Can it be that, the moment the rebel armies are dispersed, the military authority ceases, and they are to be turned loose to arm and organize again for another conflict against the Union? Why. sir, it would nol be more preposterous on the part of the traveler, after having, at the peril of lus life, succeeded in disarming a highwayman by whom he was assailed, to immediately turn round and restore to the robber hi- weapons with which to make a new assault. •• And yet this is what some gentlemen would have this nation do with the worse than robbers who have assailed it- lite. They prop..-', the rebel armies being overcome, tint the rebels them- selves .-hall lie instantly clothed with all the authority they pos- ted before the conflict, and that the- inhabitants of State- who for more than four years have carried on an organized war against the Government -hall at once be invested with all the powers they had a; it- commencement to organize and begin it anew: nay, more, they insist that, without any action of the Government, it i- the right of the inhabitant- of the rebellious States, on laying THE FREEDMEN. 123 down their arms, to resume their former positions in the Union, with all the rights they possessed when they began the war. If such are the consequences of this struggle, it is the first conflict in the history of the world, between either individuals or nations, from which such results have followed. What man, after being despoiled of much of his substance, his children slain, his own life periled, and his body bleeding from many wounds, ever restored the authors of such calamities, when within his power, to the rights they possessed before the conflict without taking some se- curity for the future. •■ Sir, the war powers of the Government do not cease with the dispersion of the rebel armies; they are to be continued and exercised until the civil authority of the Government can be es- tablished firmly and upon a sure foundation, not again to In' dis- turbed or interfered with. And such, sir, is the understanding of the Government. None of the departments of the Govern- ment understand that its military authority has ceased to operate over the rebellious States. It is but a short time since the Pres- ident of the United States issued a proclamation restoring the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in the loyal States; but did he restore it in the rebellious States'.' Certainly not. What authority has he to suspend the privilege of that writ anywhere, except in pursuance of the constitutional provision allowing- the writ to 1).' suspended 'when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it?' Then the President understand- that the public safety in the insurrectionary States >till requires its suspension. "The Attorney-General, when asked, a few days ago, why Jef- ferson Davis was not put upon trial, told you that, 'though act- ive hostilities have ceased, a state of war still exists over the territory in rebellion,' so that it could not he properly done. General Grant, in an order issued within a few dayi which I commend to the especial consideration of the Senator from Indi- ana, tor it contains many of the provisions of the hill under consideration — an order issued with the approbation of the Ex- ecutive, for such an order, I apprehend, could not have been issued without his approbation — directs 'military division and department commanders, whose commands embrace or are com- posed of any of the late rebellions States, and who have not already done so, will at once issue and enforce orders protecting JJ4 THE THIRTY-JflJfTR CONGRESS. from prosecution or suits in the State, or municipal courts of such State, all officers and soldiers of the armies of the United States, and all persons thereto attached, or in anywise thereto belonging, subject t<> military authority, charged with offene s t'lir acts done in their military capacity, or pursuant to orders from proper military authority; ami to protect from suit or prosecution all loyal citizens or persons charged with offene - done against the rebel forces, directly or indirectly, during the existence of the rebellion; ami nil persons, their agents ami em- ployes, charged with the occupancy of abandoned lands or plan- tations, or the possession or custody of any kind of property whatever, wb scupied, used, possessed, or controlled the same, pursuant to the order of the President, or any of the civil or military departments of the Government, and to protect them from any penalties or damages that may have been or may he pronounced or adjudged in .-aid courts in any of such cases; and also protecting colored persons from prosecutions, in any of said States, charged with offenses for which white persons are not prosecuted or punished in the same manner and degree." Mr. Saulsbury having asked whether the Senator believed that General Grant or the President had any constitutional authority to make such an order as that, Mr. Trumbull replied: " 1 am. very glad the Senator from Delaware has asked the question. 1 answer, he had most ample and complete authority. I indorse the order ami every word of it. It would he monstrous if the officers and soldiers of the army and loyal citizens were to be subjected to suits and prosecutions for acts done in sawng the republic, and that, to.., at the hand- of the very men who sought ii> destruction. Why, had not the Lieutenant-General author- ity to issue the order? Have not the civil tribunals in all the region of country to which order applies been expelled by armed rebels and traitors".' Has not the power of the Govern- ment been overthrown there.' I> it yet reestablished? Some steps have been taken toward reestablishing it under the author- ity of the military, and in no other way. It' any of the State governments recently set up in the rebellious States were to un- dertake to embarrass military operations, 1 have uo doubt they would at once he set aside by order of the Lieutenant-General, in pursuance of directions from the Executn These govern- ments which have been set up act by permission of th" mili- THE FREEBMEX. 125 tary. They are made use of, to sonic extent, to preserve peace and order and enforce civil rights between parties; and, so far as they act in harmony with the Constitution and laws of the United States and the orders of the military commanders, they are permitted to exercise authority ; but until those States shall be restored in all their constitutional relations to the In ion, they ought not to be permitted to exercise authority in any other way. " I desire the Senator from Indiana to understand that it is un- der this war power that the authority of the Freedmen's Bureau is to be exercised. I do not claim that its officers can try persons for offenses without juries in States where the civil tribunals have not been interrupted by the rebellion. The Senator from Indiana argue- against this bill as if it was applicable to that State. Some of its provisions are, but most of them are not, unless the State of Indiana has been in rebellion against the Government; and I know too many of the brave men who have gone from that State to mantain the integrity of the Union and put down the rebellion to east any such imputation upon her. She is a loyal and a patri- otic State; her civil government has never been usurped or over- thrown by trators, and the provisions of the seventh and eighth sections of the bill to which the Senator alludes can not, by their very terms, have any application to the State of Indiana. Let me read the concluding sentence of the eighth section: " 'The jurisdiction conferred by this section on the officers and agents of this bureau to cease and determine whenever the discrimination on account of which it is conferred ceases, and in no event to be exercised in any State in which the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has not been inter- rupted by the rebellion, nor in any such State after said State shall have been fully restored in all its constitutional relations to the United States, and the courts of the State and of the United States within the same are not dis- turbed or stopped in the peaceable course of justice.' "Will the Senator from Indiana admit for a moment that the courts in his State are now disturbed or stopped in the peaceable course of justice? If they were ever so disturbed, they are not now. Will the Senator admit that the State of Indiana does not have and exercise all its constitutional rights as one id' the States of this Union? The judicial authority conferred by this bill ap- plies to no State, not even to South Carolina, after it shall have been restored in all its constitutional rights. 126 THE Til 1 in')'-. \ 7. \' Til CONGRESS. "There is ao provision in the bill for the exercise of judicial authority except in the eighth section. Rights arc declared in the seventh, but the i le of protecting them is provided in the ajhth section, and the eighth section then declares explicitly that the jurisdiction that is conferred shall be exercised only in States which do not possess lull constitutional rights as pari- of the Union. Indiana has at all times had all the constitutional rights pertaining to any State, has them now, and therefore the officers and agents "I" this bureau can take uo jurisdiction of any case in the State of Indiana. It will be another question, which I will answer, and may as well answer now, perhaps, as to what is meant by ' military protection.' "The second section declares that ' the President of the United States, through the War Department and the commissioner, -hall extend military jurisdiction and protection over all employes, agents, and officers of this bureau.' He want- to know the eflfect of that in Indiana. This bureau is a pari of the military estab- lishment. The effeel of thai in Indiana is precisely the same as in every other State, and under it the officers and agents of Freed men's Bureau will occupy the same position as do the offi- cers and soldiers of the United States Army. What is that? While they are subjecl to the Rules and Article- of War. it' they chance to be in Indiana and violate her laws, they are held amen- able the same as any other person. The officer or soldier in the State of Indiana who commit.- a murder or other offense upon a citizen of Indiana, is liable to be indicted, tried, and punished, jus! as it' he were a civilian. When the sheriff goes with the process to arrest the soldier or officer who has committed the of- fense, the military authorities surrender him up to be tried and punished according to the laws of the State. It has always been done, nide-- in time of war when the court- were interrupted. The jurisdiction and f protection ' that is extended over these offi- cers and agents is for the purpose of making them subjecl to the Rules and Articles of War. It is necessary for this reason: in the rebellious States civil authority is not yet fully restored. There would be no other way of punishing them, of holding them to a< mtability, of governing and controlling them, in many portion.- of the country ; and it is because of the condition of the rebellious States, and their still being - under military authority, THE FREEDMEN. 127 that it is necessary to jmt these officers and agents of the Freed- men's Bureau under the control of the military power. "The Senator says the original law only embraced within its provisions the refugees in the rebellious States; and now this bill is extended to all the States and lie wants to know the reason. I will tell him. When the original hill was passed, slavery existed in Tennessee, Kentucky, Delaware, and in various other States. Since that time, by the constitutional amendment, it has been every- where abolished." Mr. Saulsbury, aroused by the mention of his own State, inter- rupted the speaker: " 1 say, as one of the representatives of Dela- ware on this floor, that she had the proud and noble character of being the first to enter the Federal Union under a Constitution formed by equals. She has been the very last to obey a mandate, legislative or executive, for abolishing slavery. She has been the last slaveholding State, thank God, in America, and I am one of the last slaveholders in America." Mr. Trumbull continued: "Well, Mr. President, I do not see particularly what the declaration of the Senator from Delaware has to do with the question I am discussing. His State may have been the last to become free, but I presume that the State of Delaware, old as she is, being the first to adopt the Constitu- tion, and noble as she is, will submit to the Constitution of the United States which declares that there shall be no slavery within its jurisdiction." [Applause in the galleries.] " It is necessary, Mr. President, to extend the Freedmen's Bureau beyond the rebel States in order to take in the State of Delaware, [laughter,] the loyal State of Delaware, I am happy to say, which did not engage in this wicked rebellion; and it is necessary to protect the freedmen in that State as well as else- where: and that is the reason for extending the Freedmen's Bureau beyond the limits of the rebellious States. "Now, the Senator from Indiana says it extends all over the United States. Well, by its terms it does, though practically it ran have little if any operation outside of the late slaveholding States. If freedmen should congregate in large numbers at ( 'airo, • Illinois, or at Evansville, Indiana, and become a charge upon the people of those States, the Freedmen's Bureau would have a right to extend its jurisdiction over them, provide for their wants, secure for them employment, and place them in situations where they 12 S Til A' 77/ / B TY-XIN Til ( 'O. \ G R ESS. could provide for themselves; and would the State of Ellinois or the State of [ndiana objecl to that? The provisions of the Mil which would interfere with the laws of [ndiana can have no oper- ation there. "Again, the Senator objects very much to the expense of this ■bureau. Why, sir, as I have once <>r twice before said, it is a part of the military establishment. 1 believe nearly all it- officers at the present time are military officers, and l>y the provisions <»t' the pending bill they are to receive no additional compensation when performing duties in the Freedraen's Bureau. The l>ill declares thai the 'bureau may, in the discretion of the President, be placed under a commissioner and assistant commissioners, to be detailed from the army, in which event each officer so assigned to duty shall serve without increase of pay or allowances. 5 "I shall necessarily, Mr. President, in following the Senator from Indiana, speak somewhat in a desultory manner: but \ prefer to do so because I would rather meet the objections made directly than by any general speech. I will, therefore, take up his next objection, which is to the fifth section of the hill. That section proposes to confirm tor three years the |« rv titles "ranted by General Sherman. The Senator from Indiana admits that General Sherman had authority, when at the head of the army at Savannah, and these people were flocking around him and dependent upon him for support, to put them upon the alxan- doned lands; hut he says that authority to put them there and maintain them there ceased with peace. Well, sir, a sufficient answer to that would he that peace has not yet come; the etfects of war are not yet ended ; the people of the St:ite< of Smith ( !ai*(>- lina, Georgia, and Florida, where these lands are situated, are vet subject to military control. But I deny that if peace had come the authority of the ( rovernmenl to protect these people in their posses- sions would cease the moment it was declared. What are the facts'.' The owners of these plantations had abandoned them and entered the rebel army. They were contending agaiust the army which General Sherman then commanded. Numerous colored people had flocked around General Sherman's army. It wa- necessary thai lie should supply them to save them from starvation. Hi- commissariat was short. Here was this abandoned count r\ . owned by men arrayed in arm- against the Government. lie. it is admitted, had authority t<> put these followers of hi- army upon THE FEEEDMEN. 1J!> these lands, and authorize them to go to work and gain a subsist- ence if they could. They went on the lands to tl e number of forty or fifty thousand, commenced work, have made improve- ments; and now will the Senator from Indiana tell me thai upon any principle of justice, humanity, or law, if peace had come when these laborers had a crop half gathered, the Government of the United States, having rightfully placed tl em in posses- sion, and pledged its faith to protect them there for an uncertain period, could immediately have turned them off and put in pos- session those traitor owners who had abandoned their homes to fight against the Government? "The Government having placed these people rightfully upon these lands, and they having expended their labor upon them, they had a right to be protected in their possessions, for some length of time after peace, on the principle of equity. That is all we propose to do by this bill. The committee thought it would not be more than a reasonable protection to allow them to remain for three years, they having been put upon these lands destitute, without any implements of husbandry, without cattle, horses, or any thing else with which to cultivate the land, and having, up to the present time, been able to raise very little at the expense of great labor. Perhaps the Senator thinks they ought not to remain so long. I will not dispute whether they shall go off at the end of one year or two years. The committee propose two years more. The order was dated in January, 1865, and we pro- pose three years from that time, which will expire in January, 1868, or about two years from this time. " On account of that provision of the bill, the Senator asks me the question whether the Government of the United States has the right, in a time of peace, to take property from one man and give it to another. I say no. Of course the Government of the United States has no authority, in a time of peace, by a legis- lative act, to say that the farm of the Senator from Indiana shall be given. to the Senator from Ohio; I contend for no such prin- ciple. But following that up, the Senator wants to know by what authority you buy land or provide school-houses for these refugees. Have we not been providing school-houses for years? Is there a session of Congress when acts are not passed giving away public lands for the benefit of schools? But that doe- not come out of the Treasury, the Senator from Indiana will prob- 9 ISO THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. ably answer. Hut how did vou get the land to give away? Did you nol buy it of the Indians? Are you no! appropriating, every a --i..i! of t tongn 5S, money by the million to extinguish the Indian title — money collected off his constituents and mine by taxation? We buy the laud and then we give the land away for schools. W ill the Senator tell me how that differs from giving the money? Does it make any difference whether we buy tin- land from the Indian- and give it for the benefit of schools, or whether we buy it from some rebel and l: i \ < — no, sir, us< — it for the benefit of ools, with a view ultimately of selling it for at least it- cost? 1 believe I would rather buy from the Indian; but still, if the traitor is to be permitted to have a title, we will buy it from him if we can purchase cheaper. "Sir, it is a matter of economy to do this. The cheapest way l>y which you can save this rare from starvation and destruction is to educate them. They will then soon become self-sustainu _ The report of the Freedmen's Bureau shows that to-day more than seventy thousand black children are being taught in the schools which have been established in the Smith. We shall not long have to support any of these blacks out of the public Tr< i -- nry if we educate and furnish them land upon which they can make a living for themselves. This is a very different thing from taking the land of A and giving it to B by an act of Con- gress. • But the Senator is mosl alarmed at those sections of this hill which confer judicial authority upon the officers and agents of the Freedmen's Bureau. He says if this authority can be exer- cised there is an end to all the reserved rights of the States, and this Government may do any thing. Nol at all, sir. The author- ity, as 1 have already shown, to be exercised under the seventh and eighth sections, is a military authority, to be exerted only in regions of country where the civil tribunals are overthrown, and not there after they arc restored. It is the same authority that we have been exercising all the time in the rebellious States; it i- the same authority by virtue of which General Grant issued the order which 1 have just read. Here is a perfect and compli I answer to the objection that i- made to the seventh and eighth tions. •• But, says the Senator from Indiana, we have laws in Indiana prohibiting black people from marrying white-, and are you going THE F REED M EX. 131 to disregard these laws? Are our laws enacted for the purpose of preventing amalgamation to be disregarded, and is a man to be punished because he undertakes to enforce them? I beg the Senator from Indiana to read the bill. One of its objects is to secure the same civil rights and subject to the same punishments persons of all races and colors. How does this interfere with the law of Indiana preventing marriages between whites and blacks? Are no! both race- treated alike by the law of Indiana? Do not the law make it just as much a crime for a white man to marry a black woman as for a black woman to marry a white man, and vice versa? I presume there is no discrimination in this respect, and therefore your law forbidding marriages between whites and blacks operates alike on both races. This bill does not interfere with it. If the negro is denied the right to marry a white person, the white person is equally denied the right to marrv the negro. I see no discrimination against either in this respect that does not apply to both. Make the penalty the same on all classes of people for the same offense, and then no one can complain. " My object in bringing forward these bills was to bring to the attention of Congress something that was practical, something upon which I hoped we all could agree. I have said nothing in these bills which are pending, and which have been recommended by the Committee on the Judiciary — and I speak of both of them because they have both been alluded to in this discussion — about the political rights of the negro. On that subject it is known that there are differences of opinion, but I trust there are no differences of opinion among the friends of the constitutional amendment, among those who are for real freedom to the black man, as to his being entitled to equality in civil rights. If that is not going as far as some gentlemen would desire, I say to them it is a step in the right direction. Let us go that far, and, going that far, we have the cooperation of the Executive Department; for the President lias told us 'Good faith requires the security of the freedmen in their liberty and their property, their right to labor, and their right to claim the just return of their labor. * ••Such, sir, is the language of the President of the United States in his annual message; and who in this chamber that is in favor of the freedom of the slave is not in favor of giving him equal and exact justice before the law? Sir, we can go along- 77/ A' 77/ / E T i '-. \ 'I. YTH COJS 6 R ES v hand in hand together to the consummation of this great o securing to every human being within the jurisdiction of the republic equal rights bi fore the law, and I preferred k for points of agr< menl between all the departments of Govern- . rather than to limit for point- of divergence. I have n said any thing in my remarks about reconstruction. I have not impl "! to discuss the question whether these States are in the si. in or out of the Union, and so much has been said upon that subject that I am almosl ready to exclaim with one of old, ' 1 knuv. not whether they are in the body or out of the body; God knoweth. 5 It is enough i'<>r me to know that the State organiza- ls in several States of the Union have been usurped and ovi thrown, and that up to the present time no State organization has been inaugurated in either of them which the various depart- mts of < rovernment, or any department of the Government, 1 - recognized as placing the State- in full possession of all the con- stitutional rights pertaining to State- in full communion with I 1 fnion. "The Executive has n<>t recognized anyone, for he still con- tinues to exercise military jurisdiction and to suspend the privil< s> of the writ of habeas corpus in all of them. Congress has sognized any of them, as we all know ; and until Congress and the Executive do recognize them, let us make use of the Freed- raen's Bureau, already established, to protect the colored race in their rights; and when these State- -hall be admitted, and the authority of the Freedmen's Bureau as a court shall cease and termine, as it must when civil authority is fully restored, let us provide, then, by other laws, for protecting all people in their equal civil rights before the law. 1 i' we can pass such measures, tl :eive executive sanction, and it shall be understood that it is the policy of the Government that the rights of the colored men are to be protected by the Stan.- if they will, but by the Federal Gov- ernment if tiny will not ; that at all hazard.-, ami under all cir- cumstances, there shall be impartiality among all classes in civil rights throughout the land. It' we can d<> this much of the ap- prehension and anxiety now existing in the loyal State- will he allayed, and a greal obstacle to an early restoration of the insur- gent States to their constitutional relations in the Union will be removed. " If the people in the rebellious §1 - san be made to under- THE FREEDMEjY. 1 stand that it is the fixed and determined policy of the ( Jovernment that the colored people shall be protected in their civil rights, tl themselves will adopt the necessary measures to protect them ; and that will dispense with the Freedmen's Bureau and all other Fed- eral legislation for their protection. The design of these bills is not, as the Senator from Indiana would have us believe, to consol- idate all power in the Federal Government, or to interfere with the domestic regulations of any of the States, except so far as to carry out a constitutional provision winch is the supreme law of the land. If the States will not do it, then it is incumbent on Congress to do it. But if the States will do it, then the Freed- to men's Bureau will be removed, and the authority proposed to be given bv the other bill will have no operation. to . x •• Sir, f trust there may be no occasion long" to exercise the authority conferred by this bill. I hope that the people of the rebellious States themselves will conform to the existing condition of things. I do not expect them to change all their opinions and prejudices. I do not expect them to rejoice that the)' have been discomfited. But they acknowledge that the war is over; they agree that they can no longer contend in arms against the Gov- ernment ; they say they are willing to submit to its authority; thev say in their State conventions that slavery shall no more exist among them. With the abolition of slavery should go all the badges of servitude which have been enacted for its mainten- to ance and support. Let them all be abolished. Let the people of the rebellious States now be as zealous and as active in the passage of laws and the inauguration of measures to elevate, de- velop, and improve the negro as they have hitherto been to en- slave and degrade him. Let them do justice and deal fairly with loyal Union men in their midst, and henceforth be themselves loyal, and this Congress will not have adjourned till the Stairs whose inhabitants have been engaged in the rebellion will be re- stored to their former position in the Union, and we shall all be moving on in harmony together." On the day following the discussion above given. Mr. Cowan moved to amend the first section of the bill so that its operation would be limited to such States " as have lately been in rebellion." In supporting his amendment, Mr. Cowan remarked: " 1 have no idea of having this system extended over Pennsylvania. I think that as to the freedmen who make their appearance there, she will /• THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. ke care of them and provide as well for them as any ■van which cm be created here. 1 wish t< lie opera- tion of i is institution to tin - I is which hav i lately \ [r. Trumbull ■! : " The ; r from Penn vania will see that the effect "!' that would exclude operation of the bureau the : ucky and tin 3l Delaware, where ves have been emancipated by th stitutional amendment. The operation of the bureau will un- doubtedly be chiefly confined to the States where slavery exist bul it is a fact which may uot be known to the Senator from Penn- sylvania, that during this war large numbers of slaves have fled the Northern States bordering on the slaveholding territory. "It is not supposed that the bill will have any effect in the Si te of Pennsylvania or in the State of Illinois, unless it might, perhaps, be at Cairo, where there has been a large number of th< - _ a d, without any means of support; they fol- io 1 army thereat different times. ••The provision of the bill in regard to holding courts, and po visions, arc confined entirely to the rebellious Stal and will have no operation in any State which was not in in.-nr- tion against this Government. I make this explanation to the - iator from Pennsylvania, and 1 think he will see the m of the bur joing inl itucky ami some of the other Si mch a- int" any of the Southern rebellious Stal .Mr. Guthrie was opposed \>> th i f the bill to his ;; aid: '• I should like to know the peculiar reasons why this bill is to be extended to the State K ntucky. She! i, been in rebellion. Though she h - run by rebel an fields laid waste, she has always had her full quota in the Union armies, and the M I of her sons has marked the fields whereon they have fought. Kentucky does not wan; and - not ask this relief. The freedmen in Kentucky are a part of our population; and where the old, and lame, and halt, and blind, and iufants rcqi md attention they obtain it from i counties. Our who! tion for the support of the I or, through tl the magistrates in t un- ties, is compl* i . ( >ii tl ther hand. Mr. < peswell, of Mar land, -aw a u cessity the operation of the bill in hi .He said: "1 have re- THE FREEDMEN. 135 ceived, within the last two or three weeks, letters from gentlemen of the highest respectability in my State, asserting that combina- tions <>f returned rebel soldiers have been formed for the expr< purpose of persecuting, beating mosl cruelly, and in some cases actually murdering the returned colored soldiers of the republic. In certain sections of my State, the civil law affords no remedy at all. It is impossible there to enforce againsl these people so violating the law the penalties which the law has prescribed for these offenses. It is, therefore, necessary, in my opinion, that this hill -hall extend over the State of Maryland." Mr. Cowan, in the course of a speech on the bill, said: "Thank God! we are now rid of slavery ; that is now gone." He also said: "Let the friends of the negro, and I am one, be satisfied to treat him as he is treated in Pennsylvania; as he is treated in Ohio; as he is treated every-where where people have maintained their sanity upon the question." Mr. Wilson said: "The Senator from Pennsylvania tells us that he is the friend of the negro. What, sir, he the friend of the negro! Why, sir, there has hardly been a proposition before the Senate of the United States for the last five years, looking to the emancipation of the negro and the protection of his rights, that the Senator from Pennsylvania has not sturdily opposed. He has hardly ever uttered a word upon this floor the tendency of which was not to degrade and to belittle a weak" and struggling race. He comes here to-day and thanks God that they are free, when his vote and his voice for five years, with hardly an excep- tion, have been against making them free.- He thanks (hid, sir, that your work and mine, our work which has saved a country and emancipated a race, is secured; while from the word f go/ to this time, he has made himself the champion of ' how no 4 to do it.' If there be a man on the floor of the American Senate who lias tortured the Constitution of the country to find powers to arrest the voice of this nation which was endeavoring to make a race free, the Senator from Pennsylvania is the man; and now he com.- here and thanks God that a work- which he has done his best to arrest, and which we have carried, is accomplished. I tell him to-day that we shall carry these other measures, whether he thank- God for them or not, whether he opposes them or not.'' [Laughter and applause in the galleries.] After an extended discussion, the Senate refused, by a vote of THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRE& thirty-three against eleven, to adopt the amendment p I by Mr. < low; 11. • bill was further discussed during three successive days, M 3srs. S ■. Eendricks, Johnson, McDougall, and Davis the measure, and Messrs. 1" ssenden, Creswell, and Trumbull in favor of it. Mr. Garrett Davis addressed the e thau once on the subject, and on tin- last day of the --ion made a very long speech, which was answered by Mr. Tru iibull. The Senator from Illinois, at the conclusion of his speech, remarked : V] ; I have now said embraces, I believe, all the points of the long gentleman's speech except the sound and fury, and that 1 will not undertake to reply to." "You mean the short gentleman's long speech," interpi some Senator. "Did 1 say short V" ashed Mr. Trumbull. "If so, it was a great mistake to -peak of any thing connected with the Senator from Kentucky as short." [Laughter.] •• [t is long enough to reach you," responded Mr. Davis. The vote was soon after taken on the passage of the bill, with the following result : 5Tkas — Messra Anthony. Brown, Chandler, Clark. Conness, Cragin, Cres- well, Dixon, Doolittli nden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Harris, Henderson, Howard, Howe, Kirkwood, Lane of Indiana, Lane of Kansas, M rgan, Mor- rill, Norton, Nye, Poland, Poineroy, Ramsey, Sherman, Spragu Stewart, Sumner, Trumbull, Van Winkle. Wade, Williams, Wilson, and Y- Nays— Messrs. Buckalew, l>a\i-. Guthrie, Hendricks, Johnson, MeDouj Riddle, Saulshury, Stockton, and Wright— 10. Absent — Messrs. Cowan, Nesmith, and Willej — '■>. The bill baving passed, the question came up as to it- title, which it was proposed to leave as reported by the committi ' A bill to enlarge the power.- of the Freednn m'- Bureau." Mr. Davis moved to amend the title by substituting Cor it. '• A bill to appropriate a portion of the public land in some of the Southern States and to authorize the United Stan- Govern- ment to purchase land- to supply farms and build houses upon them for the freed uegroesj to promote strife and conflict between the white and black races; and to invest the Freedmen's Bureau with unconstitutional pow< rs to aid and assist the black-, and to introduce military power t<> prevent the commissioner and other THE FREEDME.Y. 137 officers of said bureau from being restrained or held responsible in civil courts for their illegal acts in rendering such aid and assist- ance to tiic blacks, and for other purposes." The President pro tempore pronounced the amendment "not in order, inconsistent with the character of the bill, derogatory to the Senate, a reproach to its members." Mr. McDougall declared the proposed amendment "an insult to the action of the Senate." The unfortunate proposition was quietly abandoned by its au- thor, and passed over without further notice by the Senate. By unanimous consent, the title of the bill remained as first reported. 13 S THE THIRTY-MXT If CONGRESS. CHAPTEE VII. the freedmen's bureau bill in the house. The Bill reported to the House — Mr. Eliot's Speech — History — Mr. .Dawson vs. the Negro — Mr. Garfield— The Idol Broken — Mi: Taylor sts the Cost -Mi:. Donnelly's Amendment — Mr. Kerr — Mi:. Mar- shall on White Slavery — Mi;. Hubbard — Mr. Moulton — Opposition i.m Kentucky — Mi:. Ritter— Mr. Rousseau's Threat — Mr. Shank- lin's Gloomy Prospect — Mr. Trimble's Appeal — Mi:. McKee \x ex- ceptional Kentuckian — Mr. Grinnell on Kentucky — Tin: Example of Russi.a -Mr. Phelps — Mi:. Shellabarger's Amendment — Mr. Chax- ler — Mr. Stevens' Amendments — Mr. Eliot ci in — 1',- Bill — Yeas and Nays. ON the day succeeding the passage of the hill in the Sen; I . it was — * • 1 1 1 to the House "t" Representatives, and by them referred tu the Select Committee on the Freedmen. ' ).i the 30th of January, Mr. Eliot, Chairman of this com- mittee, reported the hill to tin- House with amendments, mainly verbal alterations. In a speech, advocating tin' passage of the hill, Mr. Eliot pre- sented something of the history of legislation for the freedmen. lie said: "On the 3d day of lasi March the hill establishing a Freedmen's Bureau became a law. It was novel legislation, without precedent in the history of any nation, rendered necessary by the rebellion of eleven slave States and the consequent libera- tion from slavery of four million persons whose unpaid labor had enriched the land- ami impoverished the hearts of their rcli masters. ■ \i an early day, when the fortunes of war had shown alter- nate triumphs and defeats to loyal arms, and the timid feared and the disloyal hoped, i: was my grateful office to introduce the first hill creating a bureau of emancipation. It was during THE FREEDMEN. 139 the Thirty-seventh Congress. But, although the select commit- tee 1" which the hill was referred was induced to agree that it should be reported to the House, it so happened that the dis- tinguished Chairman, Judge White, of Indiana, did not succeed in reporting it for our action. At the beginning of the Thirty- eighth Congress it was again presented, and very soon was re- ported back to the House under the title of 'A hill to establish a Bureau of Freedmen's Affairs.' It was fully debated and passed by the House. The vote was sixty-nine in favor, and sixty— even against the bill; hut of the sixty-seven who opposed it, fifty-six had been counted against it, because of their political affinities. On the 1st of March, 1864, the bill went to the Senate. It came back to the House on the 30th of June, four davs before the adjournment of Congress. To my great regret", the Senate had passed an amendment in the nature of a sub- stitute, attaching this bureau to the Treasury Department; hut it was too late to take action upon it then, and the hill was postponed until December. At that time the House non-con- concurred with the Senate, and a committee of conference was chosen. The managers of the two houses could not agree as to whether the War Department or the Treasury should manage the affairs of the bureau. They therefore agreed upon a bill creating an independent department neither attached to the War nor Treasury, but communicating directly with the President, and resting for its support upon the arm of the War Department. That hill was also passed by the House but was defeated in the Senate. Another Conference Committee was chosen, and that committee, whose chairman in the House was the distinguished gentleman from Ohio, then and now at the head of the Military Committee, agreed upon a hill attaching the bureau to the War Department, and embracing refugees as well as freedmen in its as. That hill is now the law. •Tiie law was approved on the 3d of March, 1865. Nine month- have not yet elapsed since its organization. The order from the War Department under which the bureau was organized hears date on the 12th of May, 1865. General Howard, who was then in command of the Department of Tennessee, was assigned as commissioner of the bureau. The hill became a law so late in the session that it was impossible for Congress to legislate any appropriation for its support. It was accessary, lJf.0 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. ther that the management of it should be placed in the I- of military officers, and fortunately the provisions of the bill permitted that to be done. General Howard was, as 1 stated, in command of the Department of Tenm a he was detailed to this duty. But on the 15th of May, that is to say, within three days the order appointing him, was issued, he assumed the duties of his offic . •• In the course of a few days, the commissioner of the bureau announced more particularly the policy which he designed to pursue. The whole supervision of the care of freedmen and of all lands which the law placed under the charg the bui was to be intrusted to assistant commissioners. •• Before a month had expired, head-quarters had been estab- lished for assistant <(iiiihn.--i-.nci'- at Richmond, Raleigh, Beau- Montgomery, Nashville, St. Louis, Vicksburg, New Orleans, and Jacksonville, and very shortly afterward assistant commis- sioners were designated for those posts of duty. They were re- quired to possess themselves, as soon a> practicable, with duties incident to their offices, to quicken in every way they could and to direct the industry of the freedmen. Notio e:iven that the relief establishments which had been created bv law under the operations of the War Department should be dis- continued as soon as they could be consistently with the con and proper protection of the freedmen, and tha ry effort should be made — and 1 call the attention of gentlemen to the fact that that policy has been pursued throughout — that every effort should he made to render the freedmen, at an early day, self-supporting. The supplies that had been furnished by the Government were only to be continued SO lone.- as the actual want- of the freedmen seemed to require it. At that time there were all over the country refugees who were seeking their homes, and they were notified that, under the care o\' the bureau, they would he protected from abuse, and directed in their effort ure transportation and proper facilities for reaching home. •• \\ i. -ever there had been interruption of civil law, it found impossible that the rights of freedmen could he asserted in the coin:-; and where there were no courts before which their rights could lie brought for adjudication, military tribunal-, pro- vost-marshi lurts, were established, for the purpose of de- termining upon questions arising betweeu freedmen or I THE FREEDMEN. 141 'men and other parties; and that, also, has been continued to this day. "The commissioners were instructed to permit the freedmen to select their own employers and to choose their own kind of service. All agreements were ordered to be free and mutual, and not to be compulsory. The old system that had prevailed of overseer labor was ordered to be repudiated by the commissioners who had charge of the laborers, and I believe there has been no time since the organization of the bureau when there have not been reports made to head-quarters at Washington of all labor contracts; and wherever any provisions had been inserted, by inadvertence or otherwise, that seemed unjustly to operate against the freedmen, they have been stricken out by direction of the commissioner here. " In the course of the next month, action was taken by the commissioner respecting a provision of the law as it was passed in March, authorizing the Secretary of War to make issues of clothing and provisions, and the assistant commissioners were re- quired carefully to ascertain whatever might be needed under that provision of the law, and to make periodical reports as to the de- mands made upon the Government through the bureau. Direc- tions were given by the commissioner to his assistant commission- ers to make repeated reports to him upon all the various subjects which had come under his charge— with regard to the number of freedmen, where they were, whether in camps or in colonies, or whether they were employed upon Government works, and stating, if they obtained supplies, how they were furnished, whether by donations or whether procured by purchase. Reports were also required as to all lands which had been put under the care of the bureau; and statements were called for showing de- scriptions of the lands, whether, in the language of the law, 'abandoned' or 'confiscated,' so that the bureau here could have full and complete information of all action of its agents through- out these States, and upon examination it could be determined where any specific lands which were under the charge of the bu- reau came from, and how they were derived. "In the course of the summer, it became necessary to issue ad- ditional instructions. The commissioner found that his way was beset with difficulties; he was walking upon unknown ground; he was testing here and there questions involved in doubt. It was THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGI hardly possible at once and by one order to designate all that it would be ueedful for him to do, and, therefore, different instruc- tions were issued from time to time from his office. The assist- ant commissioners were called upon thoroughly to examine, either 1>\ thems or their agents, the respective districts allot- ted to them, to make inquiry as to the character of the freedmen under their charge, their ability to labor, their disposition to labor, and the circumstances under which they were placed, so that the aid, the care, and the protection which the law contem- plated might be afforded to them as quickly and as economically as possible. "The commissioner continually repeated his injunctions to his assistants to be sure that qo compulsory or unpaid labor was tol- erated, and that both the moral and intellectual condition of the freedmen should be improved as systematically and as quickly as practicable. '• When the bureau was firsl organized, indeed when it was first urged upon the attention of this House, it was stated and it was believed that the bureau would very shortly be self-sustaining. That was the idea from the beginning. And when it was stated here in debate that the bureau would probably be self-sustaining, it was supposed that from the lands abandoned, confiscated, -old, and the lands of the United States, which by the provisions of the hill had been placed under the care of the commissioner, these freedmen would he given an opportunity to earn substan- tially enough for the conduct of the bureau. And I have no doubt at all that such would have been the case had the original expectation been carried out. "There were large tracts of land in Virginia ami the other rebel States which were clearly applicable to this purpose. There was the source of supply — the land- and the labor. There were laborers enough, and there was rich land enough. At a very early day the abandoned lands were turned over to the care of the commissioners, and 1 supposed, and probably we all supposed, that the hinds which in the language of the law were known as 'abandoned land-.' and those which were in the possession of the United States, would he appropriated to the uses of these freed- men. Within a week after the commissioner assumed the duties of hi- office, he found it necessarj to issue an order substantially like this: Whereas, Large amounts of land- in the State of Vir- THE FREEDMEN. us ginia and in other States have been abandoned, and arc now in the possession of the freedmen, and arc now under cultivation by them; and, whereas, the owners of those lands are now calling for their restoration, so as to deprive the freedmen of the results of their industry, it is ordered that trie abandoned lands now under cultivation be retained by the freedmen until the growing crops can be secured, unless full and just compensation can be made them for their labor and its products. "'The above order' — this is the part about which it appeared that some difference of judgment existed between the Executive and the commissioner of the bureau — ' the above order will not be construed so as to relieve disloyal persons from the conse- quences of their disloyalty; and the application for the restora- tion of their lands by this class of persons will in no ease be entertained by any military authority.' " It was found, not a great while afterward, that the views which the President entertained as to his duty were somewhat in conflict with the provisions of this order; for it was held by the President that persons who had brought themselves within the range of his pardon and had secured it, and who had taken or did afterward take the amnesty oath, would be entitled, as one of the results of the pardon and of their position after the oath had been taken, to a restoration of their lands which had been a-signcd to freedmen. In consequence of this, an order was sub- sequently issued, well known as circular No. 15. And under the operation of that circular, on its appearing satisfactorily to any assistant commissioner that any property under his control is not ' abandoned,' as defined in the law, and that the United States have acquired no perfect right to it, it is to be restored and the fact reported to the commissioner. 'Abandoned' lands were to be restored to the owners pardoned by the President, by the assist- ant commissioners, to whom applications for such restoration were to be forwarded; and each application was to be accompanied by the pardon of the President and by a copy of the oath of amnesty prescribed in the President's proclamation, and also by a proof of title to the land. It must be obvious that the effect of this must have been to transfer from the care of the bureau to the owners very large portions of the land which had been relied upon for the support of the freedmen. Within a few weeks from the date of that order, no less than §800,000 worth of property in Xew 144 TffJS THIRTY-NINTH CONGRES ans was transferred, ami about one third of the whole prop- erty in North Carolina in possession of the bureau was given upj and the officer having charge of the land department reports that before the end of the year, in all probability, there will be under the charge of the commissioner little, if any. of the lands origi- nally designed for the support of these freed men. "It is obvious, it* these land.- are to be taken, that other lands must be provided, or the freednien will become a dead weight upon the Treasury, and the bill under consideration assigns other lands, in the place of those thus taken, from the unoccupied pub- lic lands of the I Fnited States." On the following day, Mr. Dawson, of Pennsylvania, obtained the floor in opposition to the bill. His speech was not devoted to a discussion of the hill in question, hut was occupied entirely with general political and social topics. The following extract indicates the t> nor of the speech : •• Negro equality doe-, not exist in nature. The African i- without a history. lie ha- never shown himself capable of self- government by the creation of a single independent State posf ing the attributes which challenge the respect of others. The past is silent of any negro people who possessed military and civil organization, who cultivated the arts at home, or condu a regular commerce with their neighbors. No African general has marched south of the desert, from the waters of the Nile to the Niger and Senegal, to unite by conquest the scattered terri- tories of barbarous tribes into one great ami homogeneous king- dom. Xo Moses, Solon, Lycurgus, or Alfred has left them a code of wise and salutary laws. They have had no builder of cities; they have no representatives in the art-, in science, or in litera- ture; they have been without even a monument, an alphabet, or a hieroglyphic." On the other hand, Mr. Garfield, of Ohio, among the friends of the measure, delivered a speech "on the Freedmen's Bureau Bill," in which the topic discussed was " Restoration of the Rebel States." In the course of his remarks Mr. Garfield said: ■• L ! the stars of heaven illustrate our constellation of States. When God launch, d the planets upon their celestial pathway, he bound them all by the resistless power of attraction to the cen- tral sun, around which they revolved in their appointed orbits. Each may be swept by storms, may be riven by lightnings, may THE FREEDMEN. I4S be rocked by earthquakes, may be devastated by all the : r trial forces and overwhelmed in ruin, but far away in the ever- lasting depths, the sovereign sun holds the turbulent planet in its [dace. This earth may be' overwhelmed until the high are covered by the sea; it may tremble with earthquakes miles below the soil, but it must still revolve in its appointed orbit. So Ala- bama may overwhelm all her municipal institutions in ruin, but she can not annul the omnipotent decrees of the sovereign people of the Union. She must be held forever in her orbit of obedience and duty.*" After having quoted Gibbon's narrative of the destruction of the collossal statue of Serapis by Theophilus, Mr. Garfield said: "So slavery sat in our national Capitol. Its huge bulk died the temple of our liberty, touching it from side to side. Mr. Lincoln, on the 1st of January, 18(33, struck it on the cheek, and the faithless and unbelieving among us expected to see the fabric of our institutions dissolve into chaos because their idol had fallen. He struck it again; Congress and the States repeated the blow, and its unsightly carcass lies rotting in our streets. The sun shines in the heavens brighter than before. Let us remove the carcass and leave not a vestige of the monster. We shall never have done that until we have dared to come up to the spirit of the Pilgrim covenant of 1620, and declare that all men shall be consulted in regard to the disposition of their lives, liberty , and property. The Pilgrim fathers proceeded on the doctrine that everv man was supposed to know best what he wanted, and had the right to a voice in the disposition of himself." Mr. Taylor, of Xew York, opposed the bill principally on the ground of the expense involved in its execution. After having presented many columns of figures, Mr. Taylor arrived at this conclusion: "The cost or proximate cost of the bureau for one year, confining it- operation to the hitherto slave States, will be $25,251,600. That it is intended to put the bureau in fall ope- ration in every county and parish of the hitherto slave States, including Delaware. Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, 1 have not the least doubt, nor have I any doubt but that it is intended to extend it into parts of some of the border States." Mr. Donnelly moved to amend the bill by inserting the pro- vision that "the commissioner may provide a common-school education for all refugees and freed men who shall apply therefor." 10 / . Til E Til 1 1; T ) -. \ 7. \ 77/ COXG RESS. He advocated education as an efficient means of restoration :'■ the South. He presented ample tables of statistics, and summed 1 1 1 > the results in their bearing upon bis argument as follows: "The whole United States, with a population of 27,000,000, contains 834,106 illiterate persons, and of these 545,177 are found in the Southern State- with a population of 12,000,000; In other words, the entire populous North contains bul 28$ while the irsely-settled South contains 545,177." As an argument for the passage of the bill, he answered the question, " What has the South done for the black man since the close of the rebellion ? " •• In South Carolina it is provided that all male negroes be- tween two and twenty, and all females between two and eighteen, shall lie hound out to some 'master. 5 The adult negro is com- pelled to enter into contract with a master, and the district judg . not the laborer, i< to H\ the value of the labor. If he thinks the compensation too small ami will not work, he is a vagrant, and can be hired out for a term of service at a rate again to he fixed by the judge. If a hired negro leave- hi- employer he for- his wages tor the whole year. ••The black code of Mississippi provide- that no neg -hall own or hire land- in the State; that he shall not sue nor testify in court against a white man; that he must he employed by master before the second Monday in January, or he will he hound out— in other words, -old into slavery; that it' he runs away the master may recover him. and deduct the expenses out of his wages; ami that if another man employs him he will he liable to an action for damages. It i- true, the President has directed General Thomas to disregard this code; hut the moment the military force i- withdrawn from the Stale thai order will he of' no effect. •' The black cod ■ of Alabama provides that it' a negro who has ntracted to labor fails to do so, he -hall he punished with dam- ages; and if he runs away he shall be punished as a vagrant, which probably mean- that he shall be -old to the highest bidder for a term of years; and tint any person who entices him to leave hi- master, :i- by the offer of better wages, -hall he guilty of a" misdemeanor, and may be sent to jail for -i.\ months; and further, that these regulations include all persons »ro blood to the third -ion, though one parent in each generation shall be THE FREEDMEN. 1,^7 pure white; that is, down to the man who has but one eighth negro blood in his veins. After quoting the black codes of other States, the speaker thus epitomized their substance: " All this means simply the reestab- lishment of slavery. •' 1. lie shall work at a rate of wages to be fixed by a county judge or a Legislature made up of white masters, or by combina- tions of white masters, and not in any case by himself. " 2. He shall not leave that master to enter service with an- other. If he does he is pursued as a fugitive, charged with the expenses of his recapture, and made to labor for an additional period, while the white man who induced him to leave is sent to jail. "3. His children are taken from him and sold into virtual slavery. " 4. If he refuses to work, he is sold to the highest bidder for a term of months or years, and becomes, in fact, a slave. "5. He can not better his condition; there is no future for him ; he shall not own property ; he shall not superintend the education of his children; neither will the State educate them. " i). If he is wronged, he has no remedy; for the courts are closed against him." Mr. Kerr, of Indiana, addressed the House on the subject of reconstruction, maintaining, by extended arguments and quota- tions from learned authorities, that the rebel States were still in the Union. He concluded his speech by opposing the bill under consideration on the ground of its expense: "It involves the creation of a small army of agents and commissioners, whose jurisdiction and control shall pervade the whole country, shall extend into every State, into every congressional district, into every county, into every township and city of this broad Union ; provided, only, that they can find some freedmen or refugees upon whom to exercise their jurisdiction. I submit that, before a measure of this kind should be adopted, we should reflect most carefully upon what we are doing. We should remember that this country is now almost crushed into the very earth with its accumulated burden of public debt, of Slate debts, of county debts, of city debts, of township debts, of individual debts. We should bear in mind that we may impose upon the people of this country, by this kind of latitudinarian and most dangerous legis- THE THIRTY-NINTH COJ\ lation, a burden that is too heavy to be borne, and : which the day may come when the people, as one man, will fi < ! them- selves called upon to prol I in such a manner a- forever to over- throw that kind of legislation, and condemn to meri proach those who favor On a subsequent day of the discussion, Mr. Marsh; ' llli- nois, spoke against the lull. II*' put mucl - an objec- tion to whidi nearly all the opponents of the hill had referred, raely, that Congress had no warrant in the Constitution for --in- such a. measure. He -aid: " [nst( id called a hill for thf protection of freedmen and refug to be called a bill for the purpose of destroyii ustituti< i ofl United States, and subjecting the pe< pie thereof to mi power and domination. That would be a much more appropri: Mr. Marshal] was opposed to bestowing any thing in charity. "I deny." said he, "that this Federal Government has any authority to become the common almoner of the charities of tl people. I deny that there is any authority in the Federal Con- stitution to authorize us to pul our hands into their p< md take therefrom a part of their hard earnings in order to dis- tribute them as charity. 1 deny that the Federal Government was established for any such purpose, or that there is any au- thority or warrant in the Constitution for the measures which are proposed in this most extraordinary bill." He viewed with horror the slavery which the head of the War Department could impose upon the people by virtue of the pro- visions «'t' this bill. "He is to send his military satraps, 1 Mi-. Marshall, "into every county and district of these States: and they may enslave and put down the entire white people oft eon i it n by virtue of this law." He -aw in the hill powei " to rob the people by unjust taxation; to take the hard earnings from the white people of the West, who. unless wiser counsels prevail, will themselves soon be reduced to worse than Egyptian bondage. I demand to he informed here upon this floor by what power you pin your hand- into their pockets and drag from them their money to carry out the purposes of this measu Mr. Hubbard, of Connecticut, made a shoi ch in reply to the speaker last quoted. lie -aid: " The gentleman from Illinois, some twenty times in the course of hi- eloquent speech this morn- ing, called upon some one to bell him where Congress gets the ! E FUKEDMEX. 1^9 power to enact such a law as this. In the first place, 1 commend to him to read the second section of the article of the immortal amendment of'the Constitution, giving to Congress power to pass all appropriate laws and make all appropriate legislation for the purpose of carrying out its provisions. I commend to his careful study the spirit of the second section of that immortal amendment, and I think, if he will study it with a willingness to lie convinced, lie will see that it has given to this Congress t'idl power in the premises. Moreover, sir, I read in the Constitution that Congress has been at all times charged with the duty of providing for the public welfare; and if Congress shall deem that the public wel- fare requires this enactment, it is the sworn duty of every mem- ber to give the bill his support. " Sir, there is an old maxim of law in which I have very con- siderable faith, that regard must be had to the public welfare; and this maxim is said to be the highest law. It is the law of the Constitution, and in the light of that Constitution as amended I find ample power for the enactment of this law. It is the duty of Congress to exercise its power in such a time as this, in a time of public peril ; and I hope that nobody on this side of the House will be so craven as to want courage to come up to the question and give his vote for the bill. It is necessary to provide for the public welfare." Mr. Moulton, of Illinois, spoke in favor of the bill. Of the oft-repeated objection that " this lull is in violation of the Con- stitution of the United States," he .-aid: " This is the very argu- ment that we have heard from the other side of this chamber for the last five years with reference to every single measure that ha been proposed to this House for the prosecution of the war for the Union. No measure has been passed for the benefit oi' the country, for the prosecution of this war, for the defense of your rights and mine, but ha- been assailed by gentlemen on the oppo- site side of this House with the argument that the whole thing- was unconstitutional." He then proceeded to set forth at length the authority of Congress to pass such a bill. Very strenuous opposition to the passage of the bill was made by most of the members from Kentucky. Mr. Hitter, of that State, uttered his earnest protest at considerable length against the measure. He presented his views of the •'-rand purposes THE THIRTY-NINTH. CONGRESS. and designs <•!' those who introduced this bill." In his opinion intended "to commence a colony in each one <>!' the five ibove named, which i- ultimately f<> drive out the entire whit< population <>f tho - tee and till their places with the And whether this i- the design or not, it i- certain, in my judgment, i" have this effect. Ajid they could not have devised a more effectual scheme for that purpo •■ Sir, it i- not to be expected that the two races will live con- tentedly where there are large numbers of the colored people living near to neighborhoods settled with whin persons. E rience has proved to many of us that wherever large numbers colored people live, that the white people living within live oi mile- of the place become sufferers to a very large extent. V ■. sir, if this should be the case (as I have no doubt it will, in the State- in which you pro])'-'' to establish these people, the white- ami blacks will disagree to such an extent that, when people find that the colored people are permanently established, they will he compelled, iii self defense, to seek a home somewhere else. No doubt, Mr. Speaker, but that those who prepared this hill saw that the difficulties and disagreements to which 1 have jus! laded would arise, and hence they require that military jurisdii and protection shall be extended, so as to give safety in their movements; and if the white inhabitants become dissatisfied commissioner i- prepared with authority by this bill to buy them out and put the uegroes upon the land." lie thus presented his calculation of the cosl of carrying out the hill a- an argument against it: " In 1 822 the ordinary ex- penses of the Government were $9,827,643, and in 1823 tie pen-,- amounted to the sum of - 1,154. Now, sir, who could have thought at that day that in the comparatively short time of forty-three years it would require the sum of even si-j.dMii.it! ip a machinery alone for the benefit of three or four million oes, and more especially, sir, when it i> understood that in 1820 we had a population, including white and colored, of 9,633,- 545. Mr. Speaker, how long will it he at this rati — when we take into consideration the fact that our Government proper, be- - this little bureau machine, i- now costing us hundreds millions of dollars — how long, sir, will it h have t> call iu the services of Mi-. Kennedy, of census notoriet te the amount of the debt we owe THE FEEEDMEN. 151 Mr. Rousseau, of Kentucky, in defining his position, said: "I am not a Republican; i wasa Whig and a Union man, ami belong to the Union party, and I am sorry to say that the Union party and the Republican party arc not always convertible terms." Mr. Rousseau urged against the Freedmen's Bureau Bill the Wrongs and oppressions which its abuses heaped upon the people of the South. In the course of his speech Mr. Rousseau quoted what he had said on one occasion to an official of* the Freedmen's Bureau: "I said to him, f if you intend to arrest white people on the ex parte statements of negroes, and hold them to suit your convenience for trial, and fine and imprison them, then i say that I oppose you; and if you should so arrest and punish me, I would kill you when you set me at liberty; and I think that you would do the same to a man who would treat you in that way, if you are the man I think you are, and the man you ought to be to till your position here.'" This extract has considerable importance as being the occasion of an unfortunate personal difficulty between Mr. Rousseau and Mr. Grinnell, of Iowa, narrated in a subsequent chapter. The latter portion of Mr. Rousseau's speech was devoted to the subject of reconstruction. He was followed by Mr. Shankl.in, of Ken- tucky, lie characterized the Freedmen's Bureau as a "gigantic monster." He declared that " the effect of this measure upon the negro population will be to paralyze their energy, destroy their industry, and make them paupers and vagabonds." He saw ''revolution and ruin" in prospect. "I affirm," said he, "that in legislating for those States, or without allowing them any representation in these halls, you are violating one of the cardi- nal principles of republican government ; you are tearing down the main pillar upon which our whole fabric of Government rests; you are sowing broadcast the seeds of revolution and ruin. Mr. Speaker, if the object of gentlemen here is to restore har- mony and peace and prosperity throughout the Union, why do they adopt measures thus insulting, tyrannical, and oppressive in their character? Is this the way to restore harmony and peace and prosperity'.' How can you expect to gain the respect and affection of those people by heaping upon them insult and injus- tice? If they have the spirit of their ancestors, you may crush them, you may slay them, but you can never cause them to love i: : THE THIRTY-NINTH t you or respect you; and they ought not while you force upon the n n ires hich are only intended to degrade them." Mr. Trimble, of Kentucky, viewed the question in a similar • that in which it was regarded by his colleagui . " 1 said he, "this bill is in open and plain violation of that m of the Constitution. There exists no power in this ment to deprive a citizen of the United States of his prop- i take away the hard earnings of his own industry and iw them upon this class of citizens. The only way you ran take property in South Carolina, Georgia, or any other Man. i- that property under the Constitution of the United Si and the law 3 p - I in pursuance ther I his speech with the following appeal: "I appeal to my friends who love this Union, who love it for all the memories of the past, who love it because it has protected them and theirs; 1 appeal to them to pan-'' and reflect before they press this m -- ure upon these people; for 1 tell you that, in my judgment, the effe :ts of the provisions of this bill to us as a nation will not be told in our lifetimes. If legislation of this character i- to be pressed here, I awfully fear hope will sink within us. Our love for this Union and desire for it- restoration will be greatly \\ ened and estranged." Mr. McKee alone, of all the Representatives from Kentucky, was favorable to the bill. The opponents of the measure had spoken of it as a " monstrous usurpation." " We have heard that talk," said Mr. McKee, "for more than four years here. What hill 1,1- been introduced into and passed by Congress since this war began that this same party has not been accustomed to de- nounce as a monstrous usurpation of power".' When the President of the i issued his call for troops they cried out, ' \ monstrous usurpation of power.' When he sent a requisition to the Governor of my own State, what was the response? ' Not a man, not a dollar, to prosecute this wicked war against our Southern brethren.' And the Union party, God help them: in Kentucky, indorsed the sentiment al that day. I did not belong to that part of the Union party; 1 never belonged to that 'neu- trality concern.' 1 never put in my oar to help propel that ship which was in favor of thundering forth with its cannon against the North and the South alike. 1 never belonged to that party which said, ' We will stand as a wall of fire against either side.' THE FREEDMEN. loS I thank God I never stood niton but one side, and that was the side of my country, against treason, against oppression, against wrong in all its forms." In arguing the necessity for some such legislation as that pro- vided in this bill, Mr. McKee asked, " Has any Southern 3ta1 riven the freedmen 'their full rights and full protection?' 1- there a solitary State of those that have been in rebellion, (and I include my own State with the rest, because, although she has never been, by proclamation, declared a State in rebellion, 1 think she has been one of the most rebellious of the whole crew,) is there a single one of these States that ha- passed laws to give the freedmen full protection? In vain we wait an affirmative response. Until these States have done so, says this high author- ity, the Freedmen's Bureau is a necessity. This is to my mind a sufficient answer to the arguments of gentlemen on the other side. In none of those States has the black man a law to protect him in his rights, either of person or property. He can sue in a court of justice in my State, but he can command no testimony in his prosecution or defense unless the witness be a white man. We have one code for the white man, another for the black. Is this justice? Where is your court of justice in any Southern State where the black man can secure protection ? Again there is no response." Mr. Grinnell, of Iowa, a member of the committee that had reported this bill, took the floor in its favor. Much having been said by Representatives of Kentucky in reference to that State, Mr. Grinnell remarked: "I can not forget, when I hear these extravagant claims set up here, that her Governor, in the first year of the rebellion, refused to honor the call for troops made by the President of the United Slates in our darkest hour; nor can I forget that when her soldiers wished to organize regiments they were obliged to cross the Ohio River into the State of In- diana, that thev might organize them free from the interference of the power of Kentucky neutrality. That is a fact in history, and I can not overlook it, when gentlemen here arraign the President of the United State- because he has seen lit to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corjjus in the State of Kentucky." "Let us see," said Mr. Grinnell, in a subsequent part of his speech, "what are the laws of Kentucky which are so just and THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRE& honorable and equitable. The white man in Kentucky can testify in the courts; the black man can testify against himself. The white man can vote; the black man can not. The white man, ii' he commits an offense, i- tried by a jury of hi- peers; the black man i- tried by his enlightened, unprejudiced superiors. The rape of a negro woman by a white man i- no offense; the rape of a while woman by a negro man i- punishable by death, ami the Governor of the Suite can not commute. •' A white man may come into Kentucky when he pi the free negro who comes there is a felon, though a di-ehar. dier, and wounded in our battle-. A while man in Kentucky may keep a gun ; if a black man buy- a gun he forfeits it. and pays a fine of five dollar- it* presuming to keep in his possession a musket which he has carried through the war. Arson of public buildings, if committed by a white man, is punished by impris meiit in the penitentiary for a term of from seven to twenty-one year-: if committed by a black man, the punishment is death. Arson of a warehouse, etc., when committed by a white man. is punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary from one to six year-; when committed by a negro, the penalty is death. •• If a white man is guilty of insurrection or rebellion, 1. punished by being called 'chivalrous.' I instance the rebel ral Forest, who murdered white men at Fort Pillow, and is reputed the most popular man South. It' a negro rebels, or spirt - bel, he is punished with death. These are speeim Referring to the benefits conferred by the Freedmen's Bureau ■ upon Kentucky, Mr. Grinnell remarked: "A- it i- asserted that this Fr a's Bureau is a partial, unnecessary, speculating affair, J wish to call attention to the fact that in the Stato Kentucky, during the last five months, more white refugees than freednieii. in the proportion of seven and one-fourth to .me. have received rations at the hand- of the Government; that this bureau has kept in schools in the State of Kentucky fourteen thou ^il : >' '1. people. In further illustration of the work accomplished by this in- strumentality, he -aid: "This bureau is in charge of 800,000 acres of land and 1,500 piece- of town property. It has issued more than 600,000 rations to refugees, and 3,500,000 t>> IV men. 1 ; treated 2,500 refugees in hospitals, and decently buried 227 of them. It has treated 15,000 freednien, and mad" THE FREEDMEN. 155 the graves for 6,000 of the number. Transportation has been furnished to 1,700 refugees and 1,900 freedmen. In the schools there are 80,000 people that have been instructed by this bureau. And now it is proposed to leave all these children of misfortune to the tender mercies of a people of whom it is true by the Spanish maxim, 'Since I have wronged you I have hated you.' I never can. Our authority to take care of them is founded in the Constitution; else it is not worthy to be our great charter. It gives authority to feed Indian tribes, though our enemies, and a just interpretation can not restrain us in clothing and feeding unfortunate friends. In providing- schools, we can turn to the same authority which led to the gift of million- of acres of the public domain for the purpose of establishing agricultural colleges in this country." He referred to Russia for example of what should be done in such an emer«;encv: "We should be worse than barbarians to leave these people where they are, landless, poor, unprotected; and I commend to gentlemen who still. cling to the delusion that all is well, to take lessons of the Czar of the Russias, who, when he enfranchised his people, gave them lands and school-houses, and invited school -masters from all the world to come there and instruct them. Let us hush our national songs; rather gird on sack-cloth, if wanting in moral courage to reap the fruits of our war by being just and considerate to those who look up to us for temporary counsel and protection. Care and education are cheaper for the nation than neglect, and nothing is plainer in the counsels of heaven or the world's history." An allusion made by "Sir. Grinnell to the speech of Mr. Ros- seau, provoked the personal assault to be described hereafter. Mr. Raymond having the floor for a personal explanation, took occasion to make the following remarks in reference to the bill: " L have no apprehensions as to the practical working- of this law. So far as I have been able to collect information from all quarters — and I have taken some pains to do so — I find that this law, like most other laws on our statute books, works well where it is well administered. The practical operations of this bureau will depend upon the character of the agents into whose hands its management is intrusted. I certainly have no apprehension in this respect. I do not for one moment Tear thai the agents who will he appointed to carry this law into execution will not use the 156 THE THIRTY-MINTS. CONGRESS. powers conferred upon them for the furtherance of the great obj< which we all have in view — the reconciliation, the pr< >n, the irity of all cla — of those who are now our fellow-citizens in the Southern Sen.-." Mr. Phelps, of Maryland, made a speech indorsing th< prin- ciple of tin- bill, 1 * : 1 1 objecting to some of it- details. His objec- tions were removed by the presentation and acceptance of I following amendment by Mr. Shellab , of Ohio: "No person shall !)'• deemed destitute, suffering, or dependent upon the < !ov- ernment for support, within the meaning "t* this act, who, be able n< f i ii« 1 employment, could, by proper industry ami exertion, avoid such destitution, suffering ami dependi n< Mi'. Chanler made a long speech in opposition to the l>ill. II'' c particular attention to the speech of Mr. Donnelly, "f Min- nesota, who had advocated education a- a a for the South. "The malignant party spirit ami sectional hate," said Mr. Chanler, "that runs through this whole - nt, needs no illustration." After presenting voluminous extracts from speeches, letters, and public documents, Mr. Chanler summed up his objections to the hill in the following word-: "Our people are not willing to live under military rule. "This bureau is under military ride. It proposes to per- petuate and strengthen itself by the present hill. •• h Pounds an ' imperium in ivvperio' t<> protect black labor against while labor. •' It excludes the foreign immigrant from the land- given to the native-born negro. •• It subjects the white native-born citizen to the ignominy of surrendering his patrimony, his self-respect, ami his right to labor into the hand.- oi* negroes, idle, ignorant, and mi-led by fanatic, selfish speculators." Mi-. Stevens desired to amend the hill by striking out the lim- itation to three years given the possessory title- conferred by Gen- 1 Sherman, ami rendering them perpetual. This amendment the House were unwilling to accept. Mr. Stevens further pro- posed t<> strike out the proviso "unless a- punishment I'm crii whereof the party -hall have been duly convicted," giving a- a i for this amendment, " I know thai men are convicted of --mil and battery, and sentenced to slavery down there. 1 ha THE FREEDMEN. 157 authentic evidence of thai fad in several letter-, and, therefore, I propose to strike out those words." This amendment was adopted. Another important amendment proposed by the committee was the Limitation of the operation of the hill to States in which the writ of habeas corpus was sus- pended on the 1st of February, 1866. Mr. Eliot closed the de- hate by answering some objections to the hill, and presenting some official documents proving the beneficent results of the bureau, especially in the State of Kentucky. On the 6th of February the question was taken, and the hill passed by the following vote: Yeas — Messrs. Alloy. Allison, Ames, Anderson, Delos R. Ashley, James M. Ashley, Baker, Baldwin, Banks, Barker, Baxter, Beaman, Benjamin, Bidwell, Bingham, Blaine, Blow, Boutwell, Brandegee, Bromwell, Broomall, Bundy, Reader W. Clarke. Sidney Clarke, Cobb, Conkling, Cook, Cullom, Darling, Davis, Dawes, Defrees, Delano, Deming, Dixon, Donnelly, Driggs, Dumont, Eckley, Eggleston, Eliot, Farnsworth, Farquhar, Ferry, Garfield, Grinnell, G-riswold, Hale. Abner C. Harding. Hart, Hayes, Henderson, Higby, Hill, Holmes, Hooper, Hotchkiss, Asahel W. Hubbard, Chester D. Hubbard, Demas Hubbard, John H. Hubbard, James R. Hubbell, James Humphrey, Ingersoll, Jenckes, Julian. Kasson, Kelley, Kelso, Ketcham, Kuykendall, Laflin, Latham, George V. Lawrence. William Lawrence, Loan, Longyear, Lynch, Marston, Marvin, McClurg, Mclndoe, McKee, McRuer, Mercur, Miller, Moorhead, Morrill, Morris, Moulton, Myers, Newell, O'Neill, Orth. Paine, Patterson, Perham, Phelps, Pike. Plants. Pomeroy, Price, Wil- liam H. Randall, Raymond, Alexander H. Rice. John 11. Rice, Rollins, Sawyer, Schenck, Scofield, Shellabarger, Smith. Spalding, Starr, Stevens, Stilwell, Thayer, Francis Thomas, John L. Thomas, Trowbridge, Upson, Van Aernam, Burt Van Horn, Robert T. Van Horn, Ward, Warner, Elihu B, Washburne, William B Washburn, Welker, Wentworth, Whaley, Williams, James F. Wilson, Stephen F. Wilson, Windom, and Wood- bridge. — 136. \ ws— Messrs. Boyer, Brooks, Chanler, Dawson, Eldridge, Finck, Closs- brenner, Grider, Aaron Harding, Harris, Hogan, Edwin N. Hubbell, .lames M Humphrey, Kerr, Le Blond, Marshall, McCullough, Niblack, Nicholson, Noell, Samuel .1. Randall, Bitter, Rogers, Ross, Rosseau, Shanklin, Sit- greaves, Strouse, Taber, Taylor, Thornton, Trimble, and Wright— 33. Not Voting — Messrs. Ancona, Bergen. Buckland, Culver, Denison, Cool- year, Hulburd, Johnson, Jones, Radford. Sloan, Voorhees, and Wintield — 13. THE THIRTY-NINTH COJfGRL CHAPTER YIII. THE SENATE A N I I THE VETO MESSAGE. Mr. Trumbull on the amendments of the House — Mr. i THE BILL— I RENCE OF THE HOUSE — TlIK VeTO M -Mr L Kansas His efforts for delay — Mr. Garrett Davis -Mb uu-m- bcll's reply to the President — The question taken — Yeas and sai Failure of pass \<.k. ON the 7th of February the amendments of the -he Freedmen's Bureau Bill were presented to th< & ate, and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. ( )m the following day Mr. Trumbull, chairman of this commit- reported certain amendments to the amendments made b) I House of Representatives. Mr. Trumbull said: "The I! - Representatives have adopted a substitute for the whole bill, but it is the Senate bill verbatirh, with a few exceptions, which I will endeavor to point out. The title of the bill has been ged, to begin with. It was called as it passed the Senate ' A bill r <> en- large the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau.' The H has amended the title so as to make it read, ' A hill to amend an entitled "An ad to establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees," and for other purposes.' Of cours ere i- no importance in that. "The firsi amendment which the Bouse ha- made, and most important one, will be found to commence in the eighth lino ,,i' the first section. The House has inserted words limiting the operation <>f 1 1 > « - Freedmen's Bureau to those sections of country within which the writ of habeas oorpw was suspended on the l-t •lav of February, L866. A- the bill passed the Senate, it will be THE FBEEDM EX. 159 remembered that it extended to refugees and freedmen in all parts of the United States, and the President was authorized to divide the section of country containing such refugees and freedmen into districts. The House amend that so as to authorize the President to divide the section of country within which the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus was suspended on the 1st day of February, 1866, containing such refugees and freedmen, into districts. The writ of habeas corpus on the 1st day of February last was sus- pended in the late rebellious States, including Kentucky, and in none other. The writ of habeas co?pus was restored by the Presi- dent's proclamation in Maryland, in Delaware, and in Missouri, all of which have been slaveholding States. " As the bill passed the Senate, it will be observed it only ex- tended to refugees and freedmen in the United States, wherever they might be, and the President was authorized to divide the region of country containing such refugees and freedmen, and it had no operation except in States where there were refugees and freedmen. The House has limited it so that it will not have operation in Maryland, or Delaware, or Missouri, or any of the Northern States." After Mr. Trumbull had stated the other and less important amendments made by the House, the Senate proceeded to consider the amendments proposed by the Judiciary Committee, the first of which was to strike out the words '' within which the privileg< - of the writ of habeas corpus was suspended on the 1st day of Feb- ruary, 1866." Mr. Trumbull said: "I wish to say upon that point that the bill as it passed the Senate can have no operation except in regions of country where there are refugees and freedmen. It is confined to those districts of country, and it could not have operation in most of the loyal States. But it is desirable, as I am informed, and it was so stated by one of the Senators from Maryland, that the operations of this bill should be extended to Maryland. It may be necessary that it should be extended to Missouri, and possibly to Delaware. I trust not; but the authority to extend it there ought to exist, if there should be occasion for it. The only objection 1 have to limiting the operation of the bill to the late slaveholding States is, that I think it bad legislation, when Ave are endeavoring to break down discrimination and distinction, to pass a law which is to operate in one State of the Union and THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. in another. T would rather that the law should be general, although I am fully aware that there is nothing for the law to operate upon in mos1 of the States of the Union. I do not feel quite willing to vote upon Kentucky, for instance, a law that I am not willing to have applicable to the State of Hlinois, if such a state of facts exists as that the law can operate in Illinois. I prefer, therefore, to have the bill in the shape in which it passed the Senate, and such was the opinion of the Committee on the Judiciary." Mr. Guthrie, of Kentucky, spoke with much feeling upon the bearings of the bureau upon his State: "You will have to ac- knowledge these State- or you will have to do worse. The j, ; ,-- f this system of bills is a dissolution of the Union, and you can noi help it. It will be impossible for you to cany on this Government under any such system. When the Union is no! to he restored, when there i< nothing of that feeling to make the people endure, do you suppose they will endure forever - .' Do you suppose this hill will attach the people in these eleva - - more thoroughly to the Union than they felt when they reorganized their State governments, passed law- manumitting their slav< -. their Legislatures, and doing all that was indicated as necessary to he done? Do you suppose that there will ever come a lime, under this hill, that they will desire to become memb of this Union once more-.' I see in this hill exactly how Ken- tucky is tolerated here; Cora- to having part in this legislation, when she i- charged openly with being ruled at home by rebels, our counsels can !»• of no good here; hut <\\\\ we are not to be driven from the Union, and from raising our voice in favor of it, and raising it in favor of conciliation and confidence from one ■ ion t<» the other. Gentlemen do not get these doctrines of hatred -Mid vengeance from the Gospel. These are not the doc- trines I by the Savior of the world. While you cry for jug ih,' African, you are imt slow to commit wrong and din r i the white race. "Sir, there were rebels in all the States and will he again if you '■■-'■ • people to desperation. The Senator from Ma ts, if 1 understood his language aright, threatened us with irs if we dill not yield to hi- suggestions, and the rora Indiana intimated very strongly the game thing. You I trength enough to carry these measures, if it is the THE FREEDMEN. 161 sentiment of the nation; but we are not a people to be alarmed by words or threats." Mr. Sherman had been, as he said, "during this whole debate, rather a spectator than a participant." Not desiring to commit himself too hastily, he had reserved his opinion that h might ict and vote understandingly, without feeling, or prejudice, or passion. It was after full reflection that he voted for the bill so harshly characterized by the Senator from Kentucky, who had evinced a degree of feeling entirely uncalled for. Mr. Sherman said further: "I look upon the Freedman's Bureau Bill as sim- ply a temporary protection to the freedmen in the Southern States. We are bound by every consideration of honor, by every obliga- tion that can rest on any people, to protect the freedmen from the rebels of the Southern States; ay, sir, and to protect them from the loyal men of the Southern States. We know that, on account of the prejudices instilled by the system of slavery per- vading all parts of the Southern States, the Southern people will not do justice to the freedmen of those States. We know that in the course of the war the freedmen have been emancipated ; that they have aided us in this conflict; and, therefore, we arc bound, by every consideration of honor, faith, and of public morals, to protect and maintain all the essential incidents of freedom to them. I have no doubt that in doing this we shall encounter the preju- dices not only of rebels, but of loyal men ; but still the obligation and guarantee is none the less binding on us. We must maintain their freedom, and with it all the incidents and all the rights of freedom." Mr. Henderson, of Missouri, like the Senator from Ohio, had hitherto taken no part in the discussion. He was opposed to the limitations placed upon the bill by the House of Representatives. " I would not have voted for it if it had not been carried to my own State; and if this amendment of the House of Representa- tives is to be adopted, I will not vote for the bill. 1 want the bill to be made general. If it is to be made special, if it is to be applied to Kentucky only, I appreciate the feeling that drove my friend from Kentucky to make the most unfortunate remark that has been made upon the floor of the Senate since L861. 1 sin- cerely hope, for the good of the country, that the distinguished Senator may see fit to take back what he said a few moments ago. "Sir, we have had enough of disunion. I hope that no Senator 11 />/.' THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRE& in the future will rise upon this floor and talk, under any circum- stances whatever, of another war of rebellion against the consti- tuted authorities of this country. My God! ore we again to pass through the scenes of blood through which we have passed for the last four years? Are we t<> have this war repeated? No Freed- meu's Bureau Bill, do bill for the protection of the rights of any b«»dv -hall ever drive me t<> dream of such a thing." Mr. Henderson thought a better protection for the negro than Freedinen's Bureau would be the ballot. He -aid: ■■ 1 live in a State that was a slaveholding State until last January a year ago. I have been a slaveholder all my life until the day when tin" ordinance of emancipation was passed in my State. 1 advo- cated it, and have advocated emancipation for the last four y< at least since this war commenced. Do you want to know how to protect the freedmen of the Southern State-:' This hill i- use- less for thai purpose. It i- not the intention of the honorable Senators on this floor from Northern State-, who favor this hill. to -end military men to plunder the good people of Kentucky. It is an attempt to enforce this moral and religious sentiment of tlic people of the Northern Stal -. Sir. these freedmen will lie protected. The decree of Almighty God has gone forth, as it went forth in favor of their freedom originally, that they -hall he endowed with all the rights that belong to other men. Will you protect them".' (live them the ballot, Mr. President, and then . are protected." In reference to the remarks by Mr. Henderson, Mr. Trumbull " The zeal of my friend from Missouri seems to have run | with him. Having come from being a slaveholder to the position of advocating universal negro suffrage as the sovereign remedy for every thing, he manifests a degree of zeal which I have only seen equaled, I confess, by some of the diooverers of patent medicines who have found a grand specific to cure all dis- YV!i\ . he says this bureau is of no account ; give the negro the hullot. and that will stop him from starving; that will teed him; that will educate him! Von have got on your hands to- day one hundred thousand feeble, indigent, infirm colored popu- lation th it would starve and die it' relief' were nol afforded; and tho Senator from Missouri tells you, 'This is all nonsense; give them the tight of suffrage, and that i- all they want." This to feed the huimrv and clothe the naked! He has voted for these THE FREEDMEN. 163 bills; but if you will only just give the right of suffrage, you do not want to take care of any starving man, any orphan child, any destitute and feeble person that can not take care of himself! It is the most sovereign remedy that I have heard of since 1 days of Townsend's Sarsaparilla." Referring to the feeling manifested by Mr. Guthrie, Mr. Trum- bull said: "God forbid that I should put a degradation on the people of Kentucky. I never thought of such a thing. 1 would sooner cut off my right hand than do such a thing. What is it that so excites and inflames the mind of the Senator from Ken- tucky that he talks about the degradation that is to be put upon her, the plunder of her people, the injustice that is to be done her inhabitants? Why, sir, a bill to help the people of Ken- tucky to take care of the destitute negroes, made free without any property whatever, without the means of support, left to starve and to die unless somebody cares for them; and we pro- pose in the Congress of the United States to help to do it. Is that a degradation? Is that an injustice? Is that the way to rob a people?' 1 Mr. McDougall having subsequently obtained the floor, mad - the remark : "' I, being a white man, say for the white men and white women that they will take care of themselves. This bill was not made for white women or white men, or white men and women's children." This brought out the following statistical statement from Mr. Trumbull: "I have before me the official report, which .-hows the consolidated number of rations issued in the different districts and States during the month of June, July, August, September, and October, 1865. In June there were issued to refugees three hundred and thirteen thousand six hundred and twenty-seven ra- tions, and thirty six thousand one hundred and eighty-one to freedmen. In August, in Kentucky and Tennessee, there were issued to refugees eighty-seven thousand one hundred and eighty rations, and to freedmen eighty-seven thousand one hundred and ninety-five — almost an equality." Mr. Johnson, of Maryland remarked: "The object of the bill is a very correct one; these people should be taken care of; and as it is equally applicable to the whites and to the blacks, and the whites in many of the States requiring as much protection as the blacks, I would very willingly vote for the bill if I thought 164 THE r " ' HTy-.Vf.VTH CONGRESS. we had the power t<> pass it; but <>n the question of power I have no disposition now <>r perhaps at any time in th< present if the bill to trouble the Senate." The l>ill soon after passed the Senate a.s amended in the II<>;i->\ and reamended in the Senate, by a vote of twenty-nine to seven. On the following day, the amendments of the Senate wen con- curred in by tlif Bouse without debate, and the Freedmen's Bu- reau Bill \\;i> ready to be submitted to the Executive. Ten day's after the anal passage of the bill, the President sent to the Senate a message, "with his objection thereto in writing." The Senate immediately suspended other business to hear the Veto Message, which was read by the Secretary, a.^ follows: S lh Ui - lies: I have examined with care the hill which originated in tin- Senate, and has been passed by the two houses of Congress, to amend an an entitled 'An act t.i establish a Bureau for the relief of Freedmen ami Refuge and for other purposes. Earing, with much regret, i le to the conclusion that it would not lie consistent with the public welfare to give my approval to tin' measure, 1 return the hill to the Senate with in v objections to it- be- coming a law. •• I might call to mind, in advance of these objections, that there :.- no im- mediate necessity for the proposed measure. The act t<> establish a Rureau for the relief of Freedmen ami Refugees, which was approved in the month ui' March last, has net yet expired. It was thought Btringent and extensive enough for the purpose in \iew in time el' war. Before it ceases to have effect, further experience maj assist to guide us to a wise conclusion as to the policy to he adopted in time of peace. ■•| share with Congress the strongest de-ire to secure to th Imen tin' full enjoyment of their freedom and property, ami their entire indepen- dence and equality in making contracts for their labor; hut the hill before me contains provisions which, in my opinion, are not warranted by the Con- stitution, and are not well suited to accomplish the end in view "The hill proposes to establish bj authority o\' « -■-. military juris- diction over jill parts of the United Slates containing refugees and freedmen. It would, by it- very nature, apply with most force to those parts i :' the United State- in which the fr Imen must abound; and it expressly extends the existing temporarj jurisdiction of the Freedmen's Bureau, with greatly enlarged powers, over those States 'in which the ordinary course of judicial pro.- ling, has he. mi interrupted by the rebellion.' The Bource from which this military jurisdiction i- t" emanate i- none other than the President of the United States, acting through the War Department and the commissioner ut the Freedmen's Bureau. The agents to carry out this military jurisdic- tion are t.i he selected either from the army or from civil life; the country is to he divided into districts and sub-districts; and the number of salaried THE FREE DM EN. 16d agents to ho employed may be equal to the number of counties or parishes in all the United States where freedmen and refugees arc to be found. "The subjects over which this military jurisdiction is to extend in every part of the United States include protection to 'all employes, agents, and officers of this bureau in the exercise of the duties imposed' upon them by the bill. In eleven States it is further to extend over all cases affecting freedmen and refugees discriminated against 'by local law, custom, or prej- udice.' In those eleven States the lull subjects any white person who may be charged with depriving a freedman of 'any civil rights or immunities belonging to white persons' to imprisonment or fine, or both, without, how- ever, defining the 'civil rights and immunities' which are thus to he secured to the freedmen by military law. This military jurisdiction also extends to all questions that may arise respecting contracts. The agent who is thus to exercise the office of a military judge may be a stranger, entirely ignorant of the laws of the place, and exposed to the errors of judgment to which all men are liable. The exercise of power, over which there is no legal super- vision, by so vast a number of agents as is contemplated by the bill, must, by the very nature of man, he attended by acts of caprice, injustice, and passion. "The trials, having their origin under this bill, are to take place without the intervention of a jury, and without any fixed rules of law or evidence. The rules on which offenses are to be 'heard and determined' by the nu- merous agents, are such rules and regulations as the President, through the War Department, shall prescribe. No previous presentment is required, nor any indictment charging the commission of a crime against the laws; but the trial must proceed on charges and specifications. The punishment will be, not what the law declares, but such as a court-martial may think proper; and from these arbitrary tribunals there lies no appeal, no writ of error to any of the courts in which the Constitution of the United States vests exclusively the judicial power of the country. "While the territory and the classes of actions and offenses that are made subject to this measure are so extensive, the hill itself, should it become ti law, will have no limitation in point of time, but will form a part of the permanent legislation of the country. 1 can not reconcile a system of mili- tary jurisdiction of this kind with the words of the Constitution, which de- clare that • no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless upon a presentment or indictment of ;i grand jury, except in cases arising in the land and naval forces, or in the militia when in actual service in time of war or public danger;' and that 'in all crim- inal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State or district wherein the crime shall have been committed.' The safeguards which the experience and wisdom of ages taught our fathers to establish as securities for the protection of the innocent, the punishment of the guilty, and the equal administration of justice, are to be set aside, and lor the sake of a more rigorous interposition in behalf of justice, we are to take the risk of the many arts of injustice that would necessarily follow from an almost countless number of a.ents established in every parish or county in nearly a third of th : .• 3 ol the 166 THE Tlllirry-.YI.YTH CONGRESS Union, over whose decisions there is to be no supervision or control by the I ■ icral courts. The power that would be thus placed in the hands of th<- Presidenl is such as in tii f pe rtainly ought never t'> be intrust to any out: man h i' be isked whether the creation of such a tribunal within a warrant) a measure "f war, the question immediately pres whether we are still engaged in war Lei us not unnecessarily disturb the commerce and credit and industry of the country by declaring to the An ican people and to tin' world, that the United States are >-ti!l in a condition dt' civil war. At present there is no pan of our country in which the au- thority of the United States is disputed, Offenses that may i. mmitted by individuals should not work a forfeiture of the rights of whole commu- nities The country has returned, or is returning, to a state of peace and industry, and the rebellion is in fact at an end. The measure, therefi in.- to be as inconsistent with the actual condition of the country a- it is at variance with the Constitution of the United Sta "If, passing from general powers greatly enlarged. 1 have no reason to suppose, and I d not understand it to in- alleged, that tin- art of March, 18G5, has proved cieut lor tlio purpose for which it was passed, although at that time, I for a considerable period thereafter, the Government '■:' the United ."Mates remained unacknowledged in most of tin- Sta;.'- whose inhabitants had been involved in tin' rebellion. The institution of slavery, for the uiili- n of which tlio Freedmen's Bureau was called it an auxiliary, has been already effectually ami finally abi throughout the whole country by an amendment of the Constitution of the United Stat..-, ami practically it- eradication ha- ri i\<- bring relief; it will tend to • mind • reedman in a Btate of uncertain expectation and r< lessn to the ■■ among whom he lives it will be a source of constant and pprehension "Undoubtedly the freedman should be protected, but he Bhould be pro- ivil authorities, especially by the exercise <>[' all the constitu- tional powers of the courts of the United States and - a per right to change his place of abode; and if, therefore, he - not find in one community or Stat.' a mode of life suited to his desires, or proper re- muneration for his labor, he ran move to another, where that labor is more eemed and better rewarded. In truth, however, each State, induced l»v its own wants and interests, will do what is necessary and proper to retain within its borders all the labor that is needed for the developmenl of its resources. The laws that regulate supply and demand will maintain their force, and the wages of the laborer will be regulated therein-. There is no danger that the exceedingly great demand for labor will not operate in favor of the laborer. "Neither is sufficient consideration given to the ability of the freedmen to protect and take care of themselves It is no more than justice to them to believe that, as they have received their freedom with moderation and forbearance, so they will distinguish themselves by their industry and thrift, and soon show the world that, in a condition of freedom, they are self-sus- taining, capable of selecting their own employment and their own places of abode, of insisting for themselves on a pi aiuneration, and of tablishing and maintaining their own asylums and schools. It is earnestly hoped that, instead of wasting away, they will, by their own efforts, estab- lish for themselves a condition of respect, ability, and prosperity. It is certain that they can attain to that condition only through their own merits and exertions. "In this connection the query presents itself, whether the system pro- posed bj the bill will not, when put into complete operation, practically trans er the entire care, support, and control of four million emancipated slaves t" agents, overseers, or task-masters, who, appointed at Washington, are to he located in every countj and parish throughout the I nited States containing freedmen and refugees? Such a Bystem would inevitably tend (,, ., C o tion of power in the Executive which would enable him, if so (lisp I. to control the action of this numerous class and use them for the ininenl of Ids own political end-. I can not hut add another verj grave objection to this bill: The Consti- tution imperatively declares, in connection with a, that each State THE FREEDMEjY. 169 shall have at least one Representative, and fixes the rule for the number to which, in future times, each State >hall be entitled. It also provides that the Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, and adds, with peculiar force, 'that no State, withoul its con- sent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. The original act wa> necessarily passed in the absence of the States chiefly to be af- fectedj because their people were th.-n contumaciously engaged in the re- bellion. Now the ease is changed, and some, at least, of those States are attending ('(ingress by loyal Representatives, soliciting the allowance of the constitutional right of representation. At the time, however, of the consid- eration and the passing of this bill, there was no Senator or Representative in Congress from the eleven States which are to be mainly affected by its provisions. The very fact that reports were and are mad.- against the good disposition of the people of that portion of the country is an additional reason why they need, and should have. Representatives of their own in Congress to explain their condition, reply to accusations, and assist, by their local knowl- edge, in the perfecting of measures immediately affecting themselves. While the liberty of deliberation would then be free, and Congress would have full power to decide according to its judgment, there could be no objection urged that the States most interested had not been permitted to be heard. The principle is firmly fixed in the minds of the American people that there should he no taxation without representation. "Great burdens have now to be borne by all the country, and Ave may best demand that they shall be borne without murmur when they are voted by a majority of the Represetatives of all the people. 1 would not inter- fere with the unquestionable right of Congress to judge, each house for itself, 'of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members,' but that authority can not be construed as including the right to shut out, in time of peace, any State from the representation to which it is entitled by the Constitution. At present, all the people of eleven States are excluded— those wlm were most faithful during the war not less than others. The State of Tennessee, for instance, whose authorities engaged in rebellion, was restored to all her constitutional relations to the Union by the patriot- ism and energy of her injured and betrayed people. Before the war was brought to a termination, they had placed themselves in relation with the General Government, had established a State government of their own; as they were not included in the Emancipation Proclamation, they, by their own act, had amended their Constitution so as to abolish slavery within the limits of their State. 1 know no reason why the State of Tennessee, for example, should not fully enjoy 'all her constitutional relation- to the United Mate-. -The President of the United States stands toward the country in a some- what different attitude from that of any member of Congress. Each mem- ber of Congress is chosen from a single district or State: the President is chosen by the people of all the States. As deven are not at this time rep- resented in either branch of Congress, it would seem to be his duty, on all proper occasions, to present their just claim- to Congress. I here always will be differences of opinion in the community, and individuals may be 170 THE THIRTY-.YI.YTH COJTGBJES& be guilty of transgressions of the law; but these nol itute valid objections against the right of a State to representation. I would in nowh interfere with the discretion of Congress with regard to the qualifications of members; but 1 hold it my duty to recommend to you, in the interes of peace and in the interests of union, the admission of every Stat.' to its Bhare in public legislation when, however insubordinate, insurgent, or re- bellious its people may have been, it presents itself, not only in an attitude of loyalty and harmony, but in the persona of Representatives whose lo; alty can not be questioned under any existing constitutional or legal I ■It is plain that an indefinite or permanent exclusion of any part of the country from representation must be attended by a spirit of disquiet and complaint. It is uuwise and dangerous to pursue a course of measu which will unite a very large section of the country against another section of the country, however much the latter may preponderate. The course of emigration, the development of industry and business, and natural causes will raise up at the South men as devoted to the Union as those of any other part of the land. But if they are all excluded from Congr if, in a p manenl statute, they are declared not to be in full constitutional relations to the country— they may think they have cause to become a unit in feeling and Bentiment against the (lovernment. Under the political education of the American people, the idea is inherent and ineradicable that th n- sent of the majority of the whole people is necessary to Becure a willing acquiescence in legislation "The bill under consideration refers to certain of the Si itea as though they had not L been fully restored in all their constitutional relations to the United States.' If they have not, lei us at once act together to secure that desirable end at the earliest possible moment It is hardly necessary for me to inform Congress that, in my own judgment, most of these States, bo tar. at least, as depends upon their own action, have already been fully restored, and are to be deemed as entitled to enjoy their constitutional rights as mem- }„. v> f the I nion. Reasoning from the Constitution itself, and from the actual situation of the country, 1 feel not only entitled but bound to ; Mime that, with the Federal courts restored, and those of the several States in the full exercise of their functions, the rights and interests of all class f the people will, with the aid of the military in cases of resistance to the l aW8 | , iallj protected against unconstitutional infringement or viola- tion. Should this expectation unhappily fail -which 1 do not anticipate— t neI1 the Executive is already full} armed with the power- conferred by the ;1 ,. t of March, 1865, establishing the Fr linen's Bureau, and hereafter, as heretofore, he can employ the land and naval forces of the country to sup- press insurrection or to overcome obstructions to the laws ■ In accordance with the Constitution, I return the bill to the Senate, in the earnest hope that a measure involving questions and interests so im- portanl to th untry will not become a law unless, upon deliberate con- sideration b> th.- people, it -hall receive the sanction of an enlightened P^lio judgment ^^ J0HNg0N , THE FREEDMEN. 171 The majority of the Senate was in favor of proceeding imme- diately to the consideration of the message, and to have a vote as to whether the bill should be passed, " the objections of the Presi- dent to the contrary notwithstanding." To this Mr. Lane, of Kansas, was opposed. He said: "There are several Senators a! (sent, and I think it but just to them that they should have an opportunity to be present when the vote is taken on this bill. I can not consent, so long as I can postpone this question by the rules of the Senate, to have a vote upon it to-night." Mr. Lane accordingly made four successive motions to adjourn, in each of which he called for the yeas and nays. Finally, the motion for adjournment having been made for the fifth time, it was carried, with the understanding that the bill should be the pending ques- tion at one o'clock on the following day. On that day, February 20th, the bill and the message came dulv before the Senate. Mr. Davis obtained the floor, and made a long speech in opposition to the bill and in favor of the Veto Message. He expressed his aversion to the bill, and the objects sought to be attained under it in very emphatic terms, but added nothing; to the arguments which had already been adduced. Mr. Trumbull replied to the objections urged against the bill in the President's Message. The President said, "The bill, should it become a law will have no limitation in point of time, but will form a part of the permanent legislation of the country." "The object of the bill," replied Mr. Trumbull, "was to con- tinue in existence the Freedmen's Bureau — not as a permanent in- stitution. Any such intent was disavowed during the discussion of the bill. It is true, no time is expressly limited in the bill itself when it shall cease to operate, nor is it customary to insert such a clause in a law; but it is declared that the bill shall operate until otherwise provided by law. It is known that the Congress of the United States assembles every year, and no one supposed that this bill was to establish a bureau to be ingrafted upon the country as a permanent institution; far from it. Nor is it a bill that is intended to go into the States and take control of the do- mestic alfairx of the States." "There is no immediate necessity for the proposed measure," said the President; "the act to establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees, which was approved in the month of 1 : l THE Til III T i -. YIN Til cu.\ 7 / R ESS. March last, has not yet expired. It was thought stringent and extensive enough for the purpose in view in time of war/ 5 Mr. Trumbull replied: " By the terms of the act, it was t<> con- tinue 'during the present war of rebellion and for one year there- after.' Now, when did the war of rebellion cease? So far as the conflict of arms is concerned, we all admit that the war of rebell- ion ceased when the last rebel army laid down it- arm.-, and that was some time in the month of May, when the rebel army in Texas surrendered to the Union forces. I d" not hold that the consequences of the war arc over. I do aot understand that peace is restored with all its consequences. We have aot yet escaped from the evils inflicted by the war. Peace and harmony are nol yet restored, but the war of rebellion is over, and this bureau must expire in .May next, according to the terms of the act that was passed on the 3d of March, 1865, and according to the view- of the President as expressed in his Veto Mi _ •• The bill," said the President, " proposes to establish by author- ity of Congress, military jurisdiction over all parts of the United State- containing refugees and freedmen." '• I would like to know," said Mr. Trumbull, "where in that bill is any provision extending military jurisdiction over all parts of the United State- containing refugees and freedmen? The Kill contain- no such clause. It is a misapprehension of the bill. The clause of the hill upon thai subject is this: "'And the President of the Qnited States, through the War Department and ili" commissioner, shall extend military jurisdiction and protection over all employes, agents, and officers «'t" this bureau in the exercise of rlie duties imposed or authorized bj this act or the act to which this i< additional.' •■ 1- not the difference manifest to every body between a bill that extend- military jurisdiction over the officers and employ of the bureau and a bill which should extend military jurisdiction overall pan- of the United State- containing refugees and freed- men? This hill makes the Freedmen's Bureau a part of the War Department. It makes it- officers and agents amenable to the Rules aud Articles of War. But does that extend jurisdiction over tin- whole country where they arc.' How do they differ from any other portion of the army of the United States? The army of the United States, a- every one know-, i- governed by the Rules and Article- of War, wherever it ma\ he. whether in Indi- THE FREE DM EX. 173 ana or in Florida, and all persons in the army and a part of the military establishment arc subject t<> these Rules and Articles of War; but did any body ever suppose that the whole country where they were was under military jurisdiction'.' If a company of sol- diers are stationed at one of the forts in \e\v York harbor, the officers and soldiers of that company are subject to military juris- diction \ hut was it ever supposed that the people of the State of New York were thereby placed under military jurisdiction ? It is an entire misapprehension of the provisions of the bill. It ex- tends military jurisdiction nowhere: it merely places under juris- diction the persons belonging to the Freedmen's Bureau who, nearly all of them, are now under military jurisdiction." " The country," objected the President, " is to be divided into districts and sub-districts, and the number of salaried agents to be employed may be equal to the number of counties or parishes in all the States where freedmen and refugees are to be found." Mr. Trumbull replied: "A single officer need not be employed other than those we now have. I have already stated that it is in the power and discretion of the President to detail from the army officers to perform all the duties of the Freedmen's Bureau, and, in case they are detailed, the bill provides that they shall serve without any additional compensation or allowance. But, sir, is it necessary, or was it ever contemplated, that there should be an officer or agent of the Freedmen's Bureau in every county and every parish where refugees and freedmen are to be found? By no means. What is the bill upon that subject? Does it make it imperative upon the President to appoint an agent in each county and parish? It authorizes him ' when the same shall be necessary for the operations of the bureau;' not other- wise. He has no authority, under the bill, to apppoint a single agent unless it is necessary for the operations of the bureau, and then he can only appoint so many as may be needed. Sir, it never entered the mind, I venture to say, of a single advocate of this bill, that the President of the United States would so abuse the authority intrusted to him as to station an agent in every county in these States; but it was apprehended that there might be localities in some of these States where the prejudice and hostility of the white population and the former masters were such toward the negroes that it would be necessary to have an agent in every county in that locality for their protec- 174 nit '- thirty-ninth congress. tiuu; ami. in order to give the President the necessary discre- tion where this should be requisite, the liill authorized, when it was necessary for the operations of the bureau, the appointment of an agent in each county or parish. In order to vest the Pres- ident with sufficient power in some localities, it was necessary, elating by general law, to give him much larger power than would be accessary in other localities. "Sir, the country is not to be divided, I undertake to say, into districts and sub-districts unless the President of the United Stan- finds ii necessary to do so for the protection of these peo- ple; and if the law should be abused in that respect, i: would be because he abused the discretion vested in him by Congress, and not because the law required it. Lt make- do such requirement." "Tins military jurisdiction," said the President, " also extends to all questions that may arise respecting contracts." ••So far," replied Mr. Trumbull, " from extending this military jurisdiction over all questions arising concerning contracts, and so far from extending military jurisdiction anywhere, it is ex- pressly provided, by the very terms of the bill, that no Buch juris- diction shall be exercised except where the President himself has established and is maintaining military jurisdiction, which he is now doing in eleven State-; and the very moment that he ceases to maintain military jurisdiction, that very moment the military juris- diction conferred over freedmen by this act ceases and terminates. ••Sir. the whole jurisdiction to try and dispose of cases by the officers and agents of the Freedmen's Bureau is expressly limited to the time when these State- shall be restored to their constitu- tional relation-, and when the courts of the Tinted States and of the States are not interrupted nor interfered with in the peace- able course of justice. So far, then, from the bill establishing a military jurisdiction, upon which the Senator from Kentucky and other Senator- have so much harped, it confers no jurisdic- tion to try cases one moment alter the court- are restored, and are no longer interrupted in the peaceable administration of jus- tice. Let me ask by what authority is it that military tribunals are sitting to-day at Alexandria, Virginia? By what authority i- it that the writ of habeCL8 COTpUS is suspended to-day in eleven State-, when the Constitution of the Tinted States suys that the writ shall not he BUSpended except when, in cases of rebellion and invasion, the public safety may require it. By what author- THE FREEDMEjY. 175 ity dose the President of the United States object to the exercise of military jurisdiction by that part of the army charged with the execution of the provisions of the Freedmen's Bureau when he exercises that military jurisdiction himself by other portions of the army? But a few days since a military commission was sitting in Alexandria, trying persons charged with crimes — and they are held all over the South — and yet that part of the army connected with the Freedmen's Bureau can not exercise any such authority because it is unconstitutional — unconstitutional to do by virtue of a law of Congress what is done without any law ! "Where does the Executive get the power? The Executive is but the Commander-in-chief of the armies, made so by the Constitution; but he can not raise an army or a single soldier, he can not appoint a single officer, without the consent of Con- gress. He can not make any rules and regulations for the gov- ernment of the army without our permission. The Constitution of the United States declares, in so many words, that Congress shall have power 'to make rules for the government and regula- tion of the land and naval forces ' of the United States. Can it be that that department of the Government, vested in express terms by the Constitution itself with authority to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces, has no authority to direct that portion of the land and naval forces employed in the Freedmen's Bureau to exercise this jurisdiction instead of department commanders? Sir, it is competent for Congress to declare that no department commanders shall exer- cise any such authority ; it is competent for Congress to declare that a court-martial shall never sit, that a military commission shall never be held, and the President is as much bound to obey it as the humblest citizen in the land." The President said : " The trials having their origin under this bill are to take place without the intervention of a jury, ami without any fixed rules of law or evidence." "Do not all military trials take place in that way," asked Mr. Trumbull. "Did any body ever hear of the presentment of a grand jury in a case where a court-martial set for the trial <>t' ;i military offense, or the trial of a person charged with any offense cognizable before it? This Freedmen's Bureau Bill confers no authority to do this except in those regions of country where military authority prevails, where martial law is established, 176 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. where persona i sercising civil authority act in subordination to the military power, and where the moment they transcend the proper limits as fixed by military orders, they are liable to be arrested and punished without the intervention of a grand jury, or without the right of appeal to any of the judicial tribunals of the country. I would as soon think of an appeal from the d ion 'it' the military tribunal that sat in the city of Washington, and condemned to death the murderers of our late President, to the judicial tribunals <>t' the country! VThere military authority bears sway, where the courts are overborne, is it not an absurd- ity to say that you must have a presentment <>t' a grand jury, and a trial in a court." "I can not reconcile a system of military jurisdiction of this kind with the words of the Constitution," said the President. "If you can not reconcile a system of military jurisdiction of this kind with the words of the Constitution, why have you been exercising it," asked Mr. Trumbull. "Why have you been or- ganizing courts-martial and military commissions all over the South, trying offenders, and punishing some of them with death".' Why have you authorized the present Freedmen's Bureau to hold bureau courts all through the South? This has all been done by your permission, and is being done to-day. Then, sir, if you are still in the exercise of this power now, if you have been exercis- ing it from the day you became President of the United States, how i< it that you can not reconcile a system of jurisdiction of this kind with the words of the Constitution? "Sir, does it detract from the President's authority to have the sanction of law? I want to give that sanction. I do not object to the exercise of this military authority of the President in the rebellious State-. I believe ii is constitutional and legiti- mate and necessary; hut I believe Congress has authority to regulate it. I believe Congress has authority to direct that this military jurisdiction shall he exercised by that branch of the army known as the Freedmen's Bureau, as well as by any other branch of the army." "The rebellion is at an end," said the President. "The measure, therefore, seems to he as inconsistent with the actual condition of the country as it is at variance with the Constitution «.f the United States." Mr. Trumbull replied: " If the rebellion is at an end, will any /w THE FREEDMEN. 17 body fell nu> by what authority the President of the United States suspends the writ of habeas corpus in those States where it existed. The net of Congress of March, 1863, authorized the President of the United States to suspend the writ of habeas corpus during the present rebellion. He says it is at an end. By what authority, then, does he suspend the writ? By his own declaration, lei him stand or fall. If it is competent to suspend the writ, if it is competent for military tribunals to sit all through the South, and entertain military jurisdiction, this bill, which does not con- tinu military jurisdiction, docs not establish military jurisdiction, but only authorizes the officers of this bureau, while military jurisdiction prevails, to take charge of that particular class of cases iffecting the refugee or freedman where he is discriminated against, can not be obnoxious to any constitutional objection." "" his bill," said the President, "proposes to make the Freed- men's Bureau, established by the act of 1865, as one of many great and extraordinary military measures to suppress a formida- ble i bellion, a permanent branch of the public administration, with its powers greatly enlarged." "This is a mistake," replied Mr. Trumbull; "it is not intended, I apprehend, by any body, certainly not by me, to make it a permanent branch of the public administration ; and I am quite sure that the powers of the bureau are not, by the amendatory bill, greatly enlarged. A careful examination of the amendment will show that it is in some respects a restriction on the powers already exercised." " The third section of the bill," the President objected, "au- thorizes a general and unlimited grant of support to the des- titute and suffering refugees and freedmen, their wives and children." "What is the third section of the bill," asked Mr. Trumbull, " which the President says contains such an unlimited grant of Support to the destitute and suffering refugees, their wives and children "? I will read that third section : "'That the Secretary of War may direct such issues of provisions, cloth- ing, fuel, including medical stoi-cs and transportation, and afford such aid, medical or otherwise, as he may deem needful for the immediate and tem- porary shelter and supply of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen, their wives and children, under such rules and regulations as he may direct: Provided, That no person shall be deemed "destitute," "suffering," or 12 17S THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. "dependent upon the Government for support," within the meaning of this ;i<-t. who, being ahle t<> find employment, could, by proper industry and exer- tion, avoid such destitution, suffering, or dependence. "Does the President object to this bill on the ground that it authorizes medical aid to be furnished the sick? Or does he object tn it because of the proviso which limit- it- operation, and declares that nobody shall be deemed destitute and suffering un- der the provisions of the acl who is able, by proper industry and exertion, to avoid such destitution? Why, sir, it is a limitation on the present existing law. Does that look much like taking care of four million of people — a provision that expressly Limits the operations of this act t<> those only who can nut find employ- ment ".' A statement of tin- fact is all that i- necessary to meet tin- statement in the Veto Messag " The Congress of the United States," -aid the President, " has never heretofore thought itself empowered to establish asylums !> jyond the limit- of the I >istric< of ( lolumbia, except for the bene- fit of our disabled soldiers and sailors. It has uever founded schools for any class of our own people. 1: has never deemed it- self authorized to expend the public money for the rent or purchas of homes for the thousands, not t<> say millions of the white race who are honestly toiling from day to day for their subsistence." •• The answer to that is this," said Mr. Trumbull : " We never be- fore were in such a state as now ; never before in the history ot* this Government did eleven State- of the Union combine together to overthrow and destroy the Union; never before in the history of this Government have we had a four years' civil war; never before in the history of this Government have nearly four million peo- ple been emancipated from the most abject and degrading slavery ever imposed upon human beings; uever before has the occasion arisen when it was necessary to provide for such large numbers of people thrown upon the bounty of the Government unpro- ted and unprovided for. Ian, sir, wherever the necessity did exist tin Government has acted. We have voted hundreds of thousands and millions of dollar-, and are doing it from year to year, to take care of and provide for the destitute and suffering Indian-. We appropriated, years ago, hundreds of thousands of dollars to take care of and feed the savage African who wi landed upon our coast by slavers. We provided by law that whenever savages from Africa should be brought to our shores, THE FREEDMEX. 170 or whenever they should be captured on board of slavers, the President of the United States should make provision for their maintenance and support, for five years, on the coast of Africa. He was authorized by law to appoint agents to go to Africa to provide means to i'red them, and we paid the money to do it. And yet, sir, can we not provide for these Africans who have been held in bondage all their lives, who have never been per- mitted to earn one dollar for themselves, who, by the great Con- stitutional Amendment declaring freedom throughout the land, have been discharged from bondage to their masters, who had hitherto provided for their necessities in consideration of their services? Can we not provide for these destitute persons of our own land on the same principle that we provide for the Indians, that we provide fir the savage African?" "But," continued Mr. Trumbull, "the President says we have never rented lands for the white race, we have never purchased lands for them. What do we propose to do by this bill? This authorizes, if the President thinks proper to do it — it is in his discretion — the purchase or renting of lands on which to place these indigent people; but before any land can be purchased or rented, before any contract can be made on the subject, there must be an appropriation made by Congress. This bill con- tains no appropriation. If the President is opposed to the rent or purchase of land, and Congress passes a bill appropriating money for that purpose, let him veto it if he thinks it unconsti- tutional ; but there is nothing unconstitutional in this bill. This bill does not purchase any land; but it prevents even a contract on the subject until another law shall be passed appropriating the money for that purpose. "But, sir, what is the objection to it if it did appropriate the money? I have already undertaken to show, and I think I have shown,-that it was the duty of the United States, as an indepen- dent nation, as one of the powers of the earth, whenever there came into its possession an unprotected class of people, who must suffer and perish but for its care, to provide for and take care of them. When an army is marching through an enemy's country, and poor and destitute persons are found within it< lines who must die by starvation if they are not fed from the supplies of the army, will any body show me the constitutional provision or tie- act of Congress that authorizes the general commanding to open / w rif /■: run; r r-> \i. \ rir coj\ G 1 1 ess. and feed the starving multitude? And has been done by every one of yum' commanders all through the South? Whenever a starving human being, man, woman, or child, no matter whether black or white, rebel or loyal, came within the lines of the army, to perish and die unless fed from our - is, there has never been an officer in our service, and,, thank God! there has not been, who did not relieve the sufferer. If you want to know where the constitutional power to do this is, and where the law is, I answer, it i- in that common humanity that b< i every man fit to bear tin- name, and it is in that at belongs to us as a Christian nation, carrying on war upon civilized principles. "If we had the right then to feed those people as we did, have we not the right to take care of them in the cheapest way we can? If. when General Sherman was passing through Georgia, he found the lands abandoned; if their able-bodied owners had entered the rebel army to iiidit against us: if the women and children had fled and left the land a waste, and he had, as i- the fact, thousands of persons hanging upon his army dependent upon him for supplies; if it was believed that it would be cheaper to support these people upon these lands than to buy provisions to feed them, might we not >\^ so? May we not resort to whatever menus is most judicious to protect from starvation that multitude which common humanity requires us to i'vvil'.' " Nor. sir, is it true that no provision has been made by Con- gress for the education of white people. We have given all through the new Stat.- one section of land in every town-hip for the benefit of common schools. We have donated hundred- "f thousands of acres of land to all the States for the establishment of colleges and seminaries of learning. How did we get this land.' It was purchased by our money, and then we gave it away for purposes of education. The same right exists now to provide f.»r these people, and it is not simply for the black peo- ple, but for the wh'n.' refugees a- well as the black, that this hill provide s." Said the President: "The appropriation- asked by the Freed- men's Bureau, as now established, for the year L866, amount.- to $11,745,000. It may he safely estimated that the cost to he in- curred under the pending hill will require double that amount." Mr. Trumbull replied : " A tar larger -urn, in proportion to the THE FREED MEN. 181 number that wore thrown upon our hands, was expended before the creation of the Freedmen's Bureau, in feeding and taking care of refugees and freedmen, than since the establishment of the Freedmen's Bureau. Since that time, the authority of the Gov- ernment has been extended over all the rebellious States, and we have had a larger number of refugees and freedmen to provide for, but in proportion to the number I have no doubt thai the expense is less now than it was before the establishment of the bureau." "The query again presents itself," said the President, "whether the system proposed by the bill will not, when put into complete operation, practically transfer the entire care, support, and control of four million emancipated slaves to agents, overseers, or task- masters, who, appointed at Washington, are to be located in every county and parish throughout the United States containing freed- men and refugees." " I scarcely know how to reply to that most extravagant state- ment," said Mr. Trumbull. " I have already shown that it would be a great abuse of the power conferred by this bill to station an ao-ent in everv county. I have already stated that but a small proportion of the freedmen are aided by the Freedmen's Bureau. In this official document the President has sent to Congress the exaggerated statement that it is a question whether this bureau would not bring under its control the four million emancipated slaves. The census of 1860 shows that there never were four million slaves in all the United States, if you counted every man, woman, and child, and we know that the number has not in- creased during the war. But, sir, what will be thought when ! show, as I shall directly show by official figures, that, so far from providing for four million emancipated slaves, the Freedmen's Bureau never yet provided for a hundred thousand, and, as re- stricted by the proviso to the third section of the present hill, it could never be extended, under it, to a larger number. Is it not most extraordinary that a bill should be returned with the veto from the President on the ground that it provides for four million people, when, restricted in its operations as it is, and having been in operation since March last, it has never had under its control a hundred thousand - / 1 have here an official .statement from the Freedmen's Bureau, which I beg leave to read in this connection : 18$ THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGEES •■ 'The greatest number of | - to whom rations were issued, including tin C mmissary Department, the bureau issues to . with tut the army, i- one hundred and forty-eij isand one hundred and twe "Who arc they? i said there were not a hundred thousand freedmen provided for by the bureau. Whites, 57,369 ; colored ' Indians, 133 i test i n bcrby the bureau was 49,932, in September The t ital number for December was 17,025.' Chai sounds a little different from four millions. Seventeen thousand and twenty-live were all that were provided for by the Freedmen's Bureau in the month of December last, the number getting Less and less every month. Why - .' Because, by the kind and judicious management of that bureau, places of employment were found for these refugees and freedmen. When the freedmen Mere discharged from their master.-' plantations they were assisted to find places of work elsewhere. ■■ The President says," continued Mr. Trumbull, "thai < Jongress never thoughl of making these provisions for the win;, people. Lei us see what provisions have been made for the white people. Major-General Fisk, Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau for the State of Tennessee, in his testimony given before the Recon- struction Committee, said: During the last year, the rations issued to white | in Tennet have been much in excess el' tln.se issued to freedmen. When I took chai of my district the Government was feeding twenty-five thousand people; in round numbers, about seventeen thousand five hundred white persona and seven thousand Macks. The month preceding the establishment of the Freedmen' 8 Bureau, for rations alone for thai class of people the sum oi 000 was paid. My first efforts were to reduce the number of those beneficiaries of the Government, to withhold the rations, and make the people Belf-supporting as far as possible; and in the course of four months I reduced the monthly ex] •• In addition to the objections already stated," said the Presi- dent, "the fifth Bection of this bill proposes to take away land from itf the bill THE FREEDMEN. 183 does not propose to take away lands from any body. I will read it, and we shall sec what it is: "'That the occupants of land under Major-General Sherman's special field order, dated at Savannah, January L6, L865, are hereby confirmed in their possession.' "Is not this a different thing from taking away land from any body? Do yon take a thing away from another person when you have it in your possession already? This fifth section, so far from taking land from any body, provides simply for protecting the occupants of the land for three years from the 16th of January, 1865, a little less than two years from this time. If the section does any thing, it simply prevents the restoration of this property to its former owners within that period, except upon terms to be entered into, satisfactory to the commissioner, between the occupant and the former owner. This is all there is of it. It is a very different thing from taking away land from its former owners." "Undoubtedly," said the President, "the freedmen should be protected by the civil authorities, especially by the exercise of all the constitutional powers of the courts of the United States and of the States." " Let us see," replied Mr. Trumbull, " how they are protected by the civil authority." After having read from documents setting forth laws in reference to freedmen in force in Texas and Missis- sippi, Mr. Trumbull continued : " I have here a number of com- munications of a similar character, showing that, by the laws in some of the Southern States, a pass system still exists, and that the negro really has no protection afforded him either by the civil authorities or judicial tribunals of the State. I have letters show- ing the same thing in the State of Maryland, from persons whose character is vouched for as reliable. Under this state of things, the President tell- us that the freedman should be protected 'by the exercise of all the constitutional [towers of the courts of the United States and of the States!'" "He also possesses," said the President, referring to the freed- man, "a perfect right to change his place of abode; and if, there- fore, he does not find in one community or State a mod" of lite suited to his desires, or proper remuneration for his labor, he can move to another where that labor is more esteemed and better re- warded." 184 TJII: THIRTY-NINTH CONGRE "Then,sir," b id Mr. Trumbull, " is there ao aecessity for some supervising care of tl pie? A.re they to be coldly told that they have a perfect right to change their place of abode, when, if they are caught in a strange neighborh 1 without a pass, they are liable to be whipp d? when combinations exisl against them that they shall not be permitted to hire unless to their former master? An I ese people, knowing nothing of geography, knowing not whei aving never in their lives been ten miles from the place where they were born, these old women and young children, the.- foeble persons who are turned off because they can ao longer work, to be told to go and seek employment elsewhere? and is the Governmenl of the United States, which has made them free, to stand by and do nothing to save and protecl them? Are they to be let'i to the mercy of such legislation as that of Mississip] such laws as exist in Texas, to such practices as are tolerated in Maryland and in Kentucky? Sir. I think some protection is n sary for them, and that was the object of this bureau. It was aot intended, and such is aol its effect, to interfere with the ordinary administration of justice in any State, not even during the rebell- ion. The moment that any State does justice and abolishes all discrimination between whites and blacks in civil rights, the judi- cial functions of the Freedmen's Bureau cease. •• But," continued Mr. Trumbull, " the President, most strangely of all, dwells upon the unconstitutionality of this act, without ever having alluded to that provision of the Constitution which its ad- vocates claim gives the authority to pa— it. Is it not most extra- ordinary that the President of the United State- returns a hill which ha- passed Congress, with his objections to it, alleging it to he unconstitutional, and make- no allusion whatever in his whole message to that provision ><\' the < institution \\ Inch, in the opinion of it- supporters, clearly gives the authority to pa— it".' And what i- that? The second clause of the constitutional amendment, which declares that Congress shall have authority by appropriate legislation to enforce the article which declares that there -hall he neither slavery nor involuntary servitude throughout the United State-. If legislation he necessary to protect the former slaves against State law-, which allow them to he whipped if found away from home without a pa — , lii- not Congress, under the second clause of the amendment, authority to provide it'.' What kind of freedom is that which the < lonsti- THE FREED MEN. 1S5 tution of the United States guarantees to a man that does not protect him from the lash if he is caught away from home with- out a pass? And how can we sit here and discharge the consti- tutional obligation that is upon us to pass the appropriate legis- lation to protect every man in the land in his freedom, when we know such laws are being passed in the South, if we do nothing to prevent their enforcement? Sir, so far from the bill being unconstitutional, I should feel that I had failed in my constitu- tional duty if I did not propose some measure that would protect these people in their freedom. And yet this clause of the Con- stitution seems to have escaped entirely the observation of the President. " The President objects to this bill because it was passed in the absence of representation from the rebellious States. If that ob- jection be valid, all our legislation affecting those States is wrong, and has been wrong from the beginning. When the rebellion broke out, in the first year of the war, we passed a law for col- lecting a direct tax, and we assessed that tax upon all the rebell- ious States. According to the theory of the President, that was all wrong, because taxation and representation did not go together. Those States were not represented. Then, according to this ar- gument, (I will not read all of it,) we were bound to have re- ceived their Representatives, or else not legislate for and tax them. He insists they were States in the Union all the time, and accord- ing to the Constitution, each State is entitled to at least one Representative. " If the argument that Congress can not legislate for States unrepresented is good now, it was good during the conflict of arms, for none of the States whose governments were usurped are yet relieved from military control. If we have no right to legislate for those States now, we had no right to impose the direct tax upon them. We had no right to pass any of our laws that affected them. We had no right to raise an army to march into the rebellious States while they were not represented in the Congress of the United States. We had no right to pass a law declaring these States in rebellion. Why? The rebels were not here to be represented in the American Senate. We had no right to pass a law authorizing the President to issue a proclamation discontinuing all intercourse with the people of those rebellious States; and why? Because they were not repre- 1SG Till-: THIRTY-NINTH CONGRE& sented here. We had no right to blockade their i Why? They were n>>t represented here. They are States, - ys th< Presi- dent, and each State is entitled to two Senators, and to at least one Representative. Suppose tie- State of South Carolina had sent to Cong ss, during the war, a Representative; had Congress nothing to do bul t<> admit him, if found qualified? Must he be received because he comes from a State, and a State can not go out of the Union? Why. sir, is any thing more necessary than to state this proposition to show its absolute absurdity?" The President said: "The Presidenl of the United States stands toward the country in a somewhat different attitude from that of any member of Congress. Each member of Congress is chosen from a single district or State; the President is chosen by the people of all the State-. As eleven States are not at this time represented in either branch of Congress, it would seem to he his duty, on all proper occasions, to present their just claims i longress." "If it would not he disrespectful/ 5 said Mr. Trumbull, "I should like to inquire how many votes the President got in I eleven State.-. Sir. he is no more the representative of those eleven State- than I am. exeejtt as he holds a higher position. I came here a- a Representative chosen by the State of Illinois; hut 1 came here to Legislate, not simply for the State of Illinois, hut for the United State- of America, and for South Carolina as well as Illinois. 1 deny that we are simply the Representatives of the districts and States which -end us here, or that we are governed by such narrow views that we can not legislate for the whole country : and we are a- much the Representatives, and. in this particular instance, receive as much of the support of those eleven State- a- did the President himself." Mr. Trumbull finally remarked: "The President believes this hill unconstitutional; 1 believe it constitutional. He believes that it will involve greal expensi ; 1 believe it will save expense. He believes that the freedmen will be protected without it: I believe he will he tyrannized over, abused, and virtually reen- slaved, without some legislation by the nation for hi- protection. Ik- believes it unwise; I believe it to 1"- politic." Without further debate, the vote was taken on the question, " shall the hill pass, il bjections of the President of the United State- notwithstanding?" The Senators voted a- follows: THE FREEDMEM. 187 Yeas — Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Chandler, Clark, Comics-. Cragin, Cres- well. Fessenden, Foster, Grimes, Harris. Henderson. Howard, Howe, Kirk- wood, Lane of Indiana. Lane of Kansas, Morrill. Nye. Poland, I'oineruy, Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Sumner, Trumbull, Wade. Williams, Wilson, and Yates — 30. N ays — Messrs. Buckalew, Cowan, Davis. Dixon, Doolittle, Guthrie, Hen- dricks, Johnson, McDougall, Morgan, Nesmith, Norton, Riddle, Saulshury, Stewart, Stockton, Van Winkle, and Willey — 18. Absent — Messrs. Foot and Wright — 2. The President pro tempore then announced, "On this question the yeas are thirty and the nays are eighteen. Two-thirds of the members present not having voted for the bill, it is not a law." 188 THE THIRTY-jXIXTH COXGR CHAPTER IX. the civil rights bill in the senate. Duty of Congress consequent upon the Abolition of Slavery — Civil Rights Bill introduced — Reference to Judiciary Committee — Br. the Senate— Speech by Mr. Trumbull— Mr. Sa i -Mr. Van Winkle — Mr Cowan — Mr. Howard — Mr Johnson — Mi: r> wi — < versations with Mr. Trusibull ami Mr. Clark — Reply of Mr. John- son—Remarks by Mi:. Morrill — Mk. Davis "wound up"— Mr. v the original crime <>f their enslavement. As provided in the amendment itself, it devolved upon Con- 3s "to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." The Thirty-ninth Congress assembled, realizing that it devolved upon them to define the extent of the rights, privileges, ami duties of the freedmen. That body was not slow in meeting the lull measure of it- responsibility. Immediately on the reassembling of Congress after the holi- days, January •"">. 1866, Mr. Trumbull, in pursuance of previous notice, introduced a hill "to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and furnish the means of their vindi- cation." Thi- !>ill. having been read twice, was referred to the ( iommittee on the Judiciary. civil an; hts bill. isd It was highly appropriate that this bill, involving the relations of millions of the inhabitants of the United State- to the < rovern- ment, should be referred to this able committee, selected from among the men of most distinguished legal ability in the Senate. It- members were chosen in consideration of their high profes- sional ability, their long experience, and exalted standing as jurists. They are the legal advisers of the Senate, whose report upon constitutional questions is entitled to the highest consider- ation. To such a committee the Senate appropriately referred the Civil Rights Bill, and the nation could safely trust in their hands the great interests therein involved. The bill declares that "there shall be no discrimination in civil rights or immunities among the inhabitants of any State or Ter- ritory of the United States on account of race, color, or previous condition of slavery ; but the inhabitants, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involun- tary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evi- dence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding. Any person who, under cover of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any inhabitant of any State or Territory to the deprivation of any right secured or protected by the act, or to different punishment, pains, or penalties, on account of such person having at any time been held in a condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, or by reason of his color or race, than is prescribed for the punishment of white persons, is to be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction, to be punished by a fine not exceeding S1,000, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, in the discretion of the court." Other provisions of the bill relate to the courts which shall have jurisdiction of cases which arise under the act, and the means to be employed in its enforcement. 190 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGh That no question might su to the constitutionality "f the law, all the provisions which relate to the enforcement of the act were borrowed from the celebrated Fugitive Slav Law, enacted in L850. It was a happy thought to compel the enemies of the negro themselves, as judges, to pronounce in favor of the consti- tutionality of this ordinance. It is an admirable illustration the progress of the age, that the very instruments which wi • used a few years before to rivet tighter the chaii - should be employed to break those very chains to fragments, shall forever stand forth to the honor of American legislation that it attained to more than poetic justice in using the verj me - once employed to repress and crush the negro for his defense and elevation. Within less than a week after the reference of this bill to the Judiciary Committee, it was reported hack, with no alteration save a few verbal amendments. On account of pressure if other business, it did not come up for formal consid i and discus- sion in the Senate until the 29th of January. On that day Air. Trumbull, having called up the bill for the consideration of the Senate, said : •• I regard the hill to which the attention of the Senate is now called, as the most important measure that has been under its consideration since the adoption of the constitutional amendm< I abolishing slavery. That amendment declared that all persons in the United Stat*- should be free. This measure is intended to give effect to that declaration, and secure to all |>er\' happiness,' and 'that to secure thes< rights governments arc instituted among men.' to the millions of the African race in this country who were ground down and degraded, and subjected to a slavery more intolerable and cruel than the world ever before knew? Of what avail was it to the citizen of Massachusetts, who. a few years ago, went to South Carolina to enforce a constitutional right in court, that the Con- CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 191 stitution of the United States declared that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States'.' And of what avail will it now be that the Constitution of the United States has declared that slavery shall not exist, if in the late slaveholding States laws are to be enacted and enforced depriving persons of African descenl of privileges which are essential to freemen? "It is the intention of this bill to secure those rights. The laws in the slaveholding States have made a distinction against persons of African descent on account of their color, whether free or slave. I have before n.e the statutes of Mississippi. They provide that if any colored person, any free negro or mulatto, shall come into that State for the purpose of residing there, he shall be sold into slavery for life. If any person of African descent residing in that State travels from one county to another without having a pass or a certificate of his freedom, he is liable to be committed to jail, and to be dealt with as a person who is in the State without authority. Other provisions of the statute prohibit any negro or mulatto from having fire-arms; and one provision of the statute declares that for ' exercising the functions of a minister oi' the Gospel, free negroes and mulattoes, on con- viction, may be punished by any number of lashes not exceeding thirty-nine, on the bare back, and shall pay the costs." Other provisions of the statute of Mississippi prohibit a free negro or mulatto from keeping a house of entertainment, and subject him to trial before two justices of the peace and five slaveholders for violating the provisions of this law 7 . The statutes of South Caro- lina make it a highly penal offense for any person, white or colored, to teach slaves; and similar provisions are to be found running: through all the statutes of the late slaveholding States. "When the constitutional amendment was adopted and slavery abolished, all these statutes became null and void, because they were all passed in aid of slavery, for the purpose of maintaining and supporting it. Since the abolition of slavery, the L< _ latures which have assembled in the insurrectionary States have passed laws relating to the freedmen, and in nearly all the States they have discriminated against them. They deny them certain rights, subject them to severe penalties, and still impose upon them the very restrictions which were imposed upon them in con- sequence of the existence of slavery, and before it was abolished. 19 : Til A' Til I E T ) '-. V/. \ 'TE COJ\ 'G R ESS. The purpose of the bill under consideration is to destroy all these discriminations, and to carry into effect the constitutional amendment." After having stated somewhat at length the grounds upon which he placed this bill. Mr. Trumbull closed by sayint " Most of ili<' provisions of this ''ill arc copied from the late Fugitive Slave Act, adopted in 1850 for the purpose of returning fugitives from slavery into slavery again. The act that was passed at that time for the purpose of punishing persons who should aid negroes to escape to freedom is dow to be applied by the provisions of this bill to the punishment of those who shall undertake to keep them in slavery. Surely we have the author- ity to enacl a law as efficient in the interests of freedom, now that freedom prevails throughout the country, as we had in the interest of slavery when if prevailed in a portion of the country." Mr. Saulsbury took an entirely different view of the subject under consideration : " I regard this bill," he said. " as one of the most dangerous that was ever introduced into the Senate of tho United State-, or to which the attention of the American people was ever invited. During the last four or five years, I have sat in this chamber and witnessed the introduction of bills into this body which I thought obnoxious to many very grave and serious ■ constitutional objections; but I have never, since 1 have been a member of the body, seen a bill so fraught with danger, so full of mischief, as the hill now under consideration. "I shall not follow the honorable Senator into a consideration of the manner in which slaves were treated in the Southern States, nor the privileges that have been denied to them by the laws of the States. I think the time for shedding tears over the poor slave ha- wed nigh passed in this country. The tears which the honest white people of this couutry have been made to shed from the oppres- sive acts of this Government, in its various departments, during the last four years, call more loudlv for my sympathies than those tear- which have been shedding and dropping and dropping for the Last twenty years in reference to the poor. oppr< d -lave — dropping from the eve- of Btrong-minded women and weak- minded men, until, becoming a mighty Hood, they have swept away, in their resistless force, .very trace of constitutional liberty in this country. " I suppose it is a foregone conclusion that this measure, as CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 193 one of a scries of measures, is to be passed through this Congress regardless of all consequences. But the day that the President of the United States places his approval and signature to that Freedmen's Bureau Bill, and to this bill, he will have signed two acts more dangerous to the liberty of his countrymen, more disastrous to the citizens of this country, than all the acts which have been passed from the foundation of the Government to the present hour; and if we on this side of the chamber manifest anxiety and interest in reference to these bills, and the questions involved in them, it is because, having known this population all our lives, knowing them in one hour of our infancy better than you gentlemen have known them all your lives, we feel compelled, by a sense of duty, earnestly and importunately, it may be, to appeal to the judgment of the American Senate, and to reach, if possible, the judgment of the great mass of the American people, and invoke their attention to the awful conse- quences involved in measures of this character. Sir, stop, stop! the mangled, bleeding body of the Constitution of your country lies in your path; you are treading upon its bleeding body when you pass these laws." After having argued at considerable length that this bill would be a most unconstitutional interference on the part of the Federal Government with "the powers of the States under the Federal Constitution," the Senator from Delaware thus concluded : "Sir, from early boyhood I was taught to love and revere the Federal Union and those who made it. In early childhood I read the words of the Father of his country, in which he ex- horted the people to cling to the union of these States as the palladium of liberty, and my young heart bounded with joy in reading the burning words of lofty patriotism. I was taught in infancy to admire, as far as the infant mind could admire, our free system of government, Federal and State; and I heard the old men say that the wit of man never devised a better or more lovely system of government. When I arrived at that age when I could study and reflect for myself, the teachings of childhood were approved by the judgment of the man. "I have seen how under this Union we had become great in the eyes of all nations; and I see now, notwithstanding the hor- rible afflictions of war, if we can have wisdom in council and sincere purpose to subserve the good of the whole people of the 13 /■•, EE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. United : though much that was dear to us has beeu bias as by the pestilence thai walketh in darkness and the destruction that wasteth at noonday, how we might, in the providence of God, resume our former position among the nation- of the earth, and command the reaped of the whole civilized world. But, sir, to-day, in viewing and in considering this bill, the thought has occurred to me, how happy were tin 1 founders of our Federal sys- tem of government, that they had been taken from the council chambers of this nation and from among their fellow-men before bill.- of this character were seriously presented for legislative con- sideration. Happily for them, tiny sleep their lasl sleep, and — How sleep tin- brave who sink to i By all their country's wishes blest! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns t>> deck their hallowed mold, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. "'By fairy hands their knell is rung; By forms unseen their dirge is suntr: Til.-)-.' 1 1 .Mi, i]- comes, a pilgrim gray, Th bless tli" turf that wrap- their clay; Ami Freedom -hall henceforth repair Ami dwell a weeping hermit tie On the following day, Air. Van Winkle, of West Virginia, addressed the Senate on the merits of the hill. He thought that the objects sough! could only he attained through an amendment to the Constitution, lie moreover said: ■• We hear a great deal about the sentence from the Declaration of Independence, that 'all men are created equal.' I am willing to admit that all men are created equal; hut how are they equal? Can a citizen of France, for instance, by going into England, bo entitled t<> all the rights of a citizen of that country, or by com- into this country acquire all the right- "fan American, unless he i- naturalized".' ("an a citizen of our country, by going into any other, become entitled to the right- of a citizen there? It' not, it may he -aid that they are 1 1 « • t equal. I believe that the division of men into separate communities, and their living in sa- . and association with their fellows, as they do. are both divine institutions, ami that, consequently, the authors of the Declara- CIVIL BIGHTS i! ILL. L 9o tion of Independence could have meant nothing more than that the rights of citizens of any community are equal to the ri. of all other citizens of that community. Whenever all commu- nities are conducted in accordance with these principles, these. very conditions of their prosperous existence, then all mankind will be equal, each enjoying his equality in his own community, and not till then. Therefore, I assert that there is no right that can be exercised by any community of society more perfect than that of excluding from citizenship or membership those who arc ob- jectionable. If a little society is formed for a benevolent, literary, or any other purpose, the members immediately exercise, and claim the right to exercise, that right; they determine who shall come into their community. We have the right to determine who shall be members of our community; and much as has been said here about what God has done, and about our obligations to the Almighty in reference to this matter. I do not see where it comes in that we are bound to receive into our community those whose minglings with us might be detrimental to our in- terests. I do not believe that a superior race is bound to receive among it those of an inferior race, if the mingling of them can only tend to the detriment of the mass. I do not mean strict miscegenation, but I mean the mingling of two races in society, associating from time to time with each other." Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, spoke against the bill. He said : " The identical question came up in my State — the ques- tion whether the negro was a citizen, and whether he possessed political power in that State — and it was there decided that he was not one of the original corporators, that he was not one of the freemen who originally possessed political power, and that they had never, by any enactment or by any act of theirs, ad- mitted him into a participation of that power, except so far as to tax him for the support of Government. And, Mr. President, I think it a most important question, and particularly a most important question for the Pacific coast, and those States which lie upon it, as to whether this door shall now be thrown open to the. Asiatic population. If it be, there is an end to republican government there, because it is very well ascertained that those people have no appreciation of that form of government ; it seems to be obnoxious to their very nature; they seem to be incapable either of understanding it or of carrying it out; and I can not 196 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. consent to say that California, or Oregon, or Colorado, or Ne- vada, or any of those States, shall be given over to an irruption of Chinese. I. for ray part, protest against it. "There is a great deal more in this I > 1 1 1 that is exceedingly :tionable. It is the first time, I think, in the history of civ- ilized legislation, that a judicial officer has been held up and sub- ted !■> a criminal punishment for that which may have I a conscientious discharge of his duty. It is, I say. the first that I know of, in the legislation of modern and civilized nations, where a bill of indictment is to take the place of a writ of error, and where a mistake is to be tortured into a crime "I may state that I have another objection to this bill at the present time; and that is, that the people of several States in the Union are not represented here, and yet this law i.- mainly to i rate upon those people. I think it would be at hast decent, respect- ful, if we desire to maintain and support this (Government on the broad foundation upon which it was laid — namely, the consent of the governed — that we should wait, at any rate, until the people upon whom it is to operate have a voice in these hall-." Mr. Cowan then proceeded in a somewhat "devious cours as it was characterized by another Senator, to make remarks upon the subject of reconstruction. Many question.- and remarks were interposed by other Senators, giving the discus-ion an ex- ceedingly colloquial style. At length, Mr. Howard, of Michigan, having obtained floor, -poke in favor of the bill. He said: "If I underst correctly the interpretation given by several Senators to the con- stitutional amendment abolishing slavery, it is this: that the - effect of it is to cnt and sever the mere legal ligament by which the person and the service of the slave was attached to his m:.- and that beyond this particular office the amendment does not j> that it can have no effect whatever upon the condition of the em cipated black in any other respect, [n other words, they hold that it relieves him from his so-called legal obligation to render his persona] service to his master without compensation, and there leave- him, totally, irretrievably, and without any power on the part of ( tongress to look after his well-being from the moment of this mockery of emancipation. Sir, such was not the intention of the friend- of this amendment at the time of its initiation here, ami at the time of it- adoption ; and I undertake to say that it i* CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 107 not the construction which is given to it by the bar throughout the country, and much less by the liberty-loving people. "But let us look more closely at this narrow construction. Where docs it leave us? We arc told that the amendment simply relieves the slave from the obligation to render service to his master. What is a slave in contemplation of American law, in contemplation of the laws of all the slave States? We know full well ; the history of two hundred years teaches us that he had no rights, nor nothing which he could call his own. He had not the right to become a husband or a father in the eye of the law ; he had no child ; he was not at liberty to indulge the natural affections of the human heart for children, for wife, or even for friend. He owned no property, because the law pro- hibited him. He could not take real or personal estate either by sale, by grant, or by descent or inheritance. He did not own the bread he earned and ate. He stood upon the face of the earth completely isolated from the society in which he happened to be. He was nothing but a chattel, subject to the will of his owner, and unprotected in his rights by the law of the State where he happened to live. His rights, did I say? No, sir, I use inap- propriate language. He had no rights ; he was an animal ; he was property, a chattel. The Almighty, according to the ideas of the times, had made him to be property, a chattel, and not .i man. " Now, sir, it is not denied that this relation of servitude be- tween the former negro slave and his master was actually severed by this amendment. But the absurd construction now forced upon it leaves him without family, without property, without the im- plements of husbandry, and even without the right to acquire or use any instrumentalities of carrying on the industry of which he may be capable; it leaves him without friend or support, and even without the clothes to cover his nakedness. He is a waif upon the current of time; he has nothing that belongs to him on the face of the earth, except solely his naked person. And here, in this State, we are called upon to abandon the poor creature whom we have emancipated. We are coolly told that he has no right beyond this, and we are told that under this amendment the power of the State within whose limits he happens to be is not at all restrained in respect to him, and thai the State, through its Legislature, may at any time declare him to be a vagrant, and THE TillirD'-.YLVTII CONGRESS. i to jail, or him to uncompensated . i( e." Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, made a speech, in which he ex- I himself as in favor of conferring citizenship upon the i ), and yet unable to vote for this bill from the a he entertained on "the question of power." He referred to the d Scott and other decisions, and - 1 their bearing upon legislation now proposed. He said: "I have been oxious individually that there should he some definition which will rid this class of our people from that objection. If the Supreme Court decision is a binding one, and will be followed in the future, this law which we are now about to pass will be held, of course, to I f no avail, as far as it professes to d what citizenship is, because it gives the rights of citiz< oship to all persons without distinction of color, and, of course, embrace.-: Af- ricans or descendants of Africans." He referred to a precedent when Congress had conferred the •- of citizenship: "The citizens of Texas, who. of course, aliens, it has never been doubted became citizens vi' the United States by the annexation of Texas; and that was not • by treaty, it was done by legislation. If the power was in gress by legislation to make citizens of all the inhabitants of State of Texas, why is it not in the power of Cong make citizens by legislation of all who arc inhabitants of the United States, and who are not citizens? That is what this hill 5, or what it proposes to do. There are within the United States million.- of people who are not citizens, according to th^ view of the Supreme Court of the United States. Ought they to itizens? 1 think they ought. I think it i- an anomalv that says there shall not be the rights of citizenship to any of the in- il mts of any State of the I Fnited Staf • While they were slaves, it was a very different question ; I . . when slavery is terminated, and by terminating it you have got rid of the only obstacle in the way of citizi nship, two quest : First, whether that fad it-elf does not make them citizi fore they were not citizens, because of slavery, an because of slavery. Slavery abolished, why are they not just as much cit- • they would have been if slavery had never existed? My opiuion is that they become citizen-, and 1 hold tl at opinion so ugly thai I should consider it unnecessary to l< on the CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 199 subject ai all, as far as that class is concerned, but for the ruling of the Supreme Court to which I have adverted." Mr. Davis, of Kentucky, spoke against the propriety and con- stitutionality of making all aegroes citizens of the United States. He said: "There never was a colony before the Declaration of Independence, and there never was a State after the Declaration of Independence, up to the time of the adoption of the Constitu- tion, so far as I have been able to learn by the slight historical examination which I have given to the subject, that ever made or attempted to make any other person than a person who belonged to one of the nationalities of Europe a citizen. I invoke the chair- man of the committee to give me an instance, to point to any his- tory or any memento, where a negro, although that negro was born in America, was ever made a citizen of either of the States of the United States before the adoption of this Constitution. The whole material out of which citizens were made previous to the adoption of the present Constitution was from the European nationalities, from the Caucasian race, if I may use the term. I deny that a single citizen was ever made by one of the States out of the negro race. I deny that a single citizen was ever made by one of the States out of the Mongolian race. I controvert that a single cit- zen was ever made by one of the States out of the Chinese race, out of the Hindoos, or out of any other race of people but the Caucasian race of Europe. " I come, then, to this position : that whenever the States, after the Declaration of Independence and before the present Constitu- tion was adopted, legislated in relation to citizenship, or acted in their governments in relation to citizenship, the subject of that legislation or that action was the Caucasian race of Europe ; that none of the inferior races of any kind were intended to be embraced or were embraced by this work of Government in manufacturing citizens." Mr. Trumbull inquired, "Will the Senator from Kentucky allow me to ask him if he means to assert that negroes were not citizens of any of these colonies before the adoption of the Con- stitution?" " I say they were not," said Mr. Davis. "Does the Senator wish any authority to show that they were?' 1 asked Mr. Trumbull. "When I get through," said Mr. Davis, "you can answer me." 200 THE THIirr\--.Yl.YTIl CONGRESS. Mr. Trumbull replied: " 1 understood the Senator to challei me to produce any proof on that point, and I thoughl he would like to have it in his speech. I can asserl to him that by a solemn decision of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, they were citi- zens before the adoption of the Constitution." " If the honorable Senator will allow me," said Mr. Davis. "I will set along with my remarks." " 1 think you will gel along better," replied Mr. Trumbull, '• by noi being exposed in your statements." " The honorable Senator is full of conceit, but I have seen less conceit with a great deal more brains," said Mr. Davis, who then proceeded "to throw up" what he termed "the main buttress for the defense of the positions" that he took. " My main position," said he, "is, that no native-born person of the United States, of any race or color, can be admitted a citizen of the United States by Congress under the power conferred in relation to naturalization by the Constitution upon Congress." After reading some authorities, the Senator proceeded to Bay: "A grave hallucination in this day is to claim all power; and a minor error is that every thing which passion, or interest, or party power, or any selfish claims may represent to the judgment or imagination of gentlemen who belong to strong parties, to be necessary or useful for the good and the domination of such par- ties, is seized upon in defiance of a fair construction of language, in outrage of the plain meaning of the ( institution. That is not the rule by which our ( lonstitution is to he interpreted. It is not the rule by which it is to be administered. On the contrary, if the able, honorable, and clear-headed Senator from Illinois would do himself and his country the justice to place himself in the position of the trainers of the Constitution; if he would look all around on the circumstances and connections of that day. on the purposes of those men noi only in relation to forming a more perfect Union, bul also in relation to securing the blessings of life, liberty, and property to themselves and their posterity forever; if the honorable Senator would construe the Constitution accor- ding to the light, the sacred and bright lighl which such sur- rounding circumstances would throw upon hi- intellect, it seems to me that he would at once abandon this abominable bill, and would also ask to withdraw it- twin si-t- ■•• from the other House CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 20 I that both might be smothered here together upon the altar of the Constitution and of patriotism." At the elose of Mr. Davis' speech, much debate and conversa- tion ensued among various Senators upon a proposed amendment by Mr. Lane, of Kansas, by which Indians " under tribal author- ity" should be excluded from the benefits conferred by this bill. After this question was disposed of, Mr. Davis was drawn out in another speech by what seemed to him to be the necessity of de- fending some positions which he had assumed. He said: " I still reiterate the position that the negro is not a citizen here according to the essential fundamental principles of our system ; but whether he be a citizen or not, he is not a foreigner, and no man, white or black, or red or mixed, can be made a citizen by naturalization unless he is a foreigner." Mr. Clark, of New Hampshire, interposed : " I wish the Sen- ator from Kentucky would tell us what constitutes a citizen under the Constitution." " A foreigner is not a citizen in the fullest sense of the word at all," said Mr. Davis. " The Senator is now telling us," said Mr. Clark, " who is not a citizen, but my question is, What constitutes a citizen?" " I leave that to the exercise of your own ingenuity," replied Mr. Davis. "That is it," said Mr. Clark. "Washington is dead; Marshall is dead; Story is dead; I hoped the Senator from Kentucky would have enlightened us. He says a negro is not a citizen, and a negro is not a foreigner and can not be made a citizen. He says that a person who might be and was a citizen before the Constitution, is not a citizen since the Constitution was adopted. What right was taken away from him by the Constitution that disqualifies him from being a citizen? The free negroes in my State, before the Constitution was adopted, were citizens." Mr. Davis, having admitted that free negroes were citizens be- fore the Constitution in New Hampshire, Mr. Clark said: " I desired that the Senator should tell me what, in his opinion, constituted a citizen under the Constitution." Mr. Davis replied : " I will answer the honorable Senator. We sometimes answer a positive question by declaring what a thing is not. Now, the honorable Senator asks me what a citizen is. It THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. isier i" answer what it Ls not than what it is, and I sav that a negro is not a citizen." •• Well, that is a Lucid definition/ 5 said Mr. Clark. "Sufficient for the subject," said Mr. Davis. "That is begging the question," Mr. ('lark replied. "Iwanted to find why a negro was not a citizen, if the gentleman would tell me. If he would lay down his definition, I wanted to see whether the negro did not comply with it and conform to it, so as to 1"- a citizen ; but he insists that he is nut ;i citizen." " 1 will answer that question, it' the honorable Senator will per- mit me," .-aid Mr. I >a\ i-. "Government is a political partner- ship. No persons but the partners who formed the partnership are parties to the government. Here is a government formed by the white man alone. The negro was excluded from the formation of our political partnership; he had nothing to do with it; he had nothing to do in its formation." •• Es it a close corporation, so that new partners can not be added?" asked Mr. Stewart, of Nevada. "Yes, sir," -aid Mr. Davis; "it is a close white corporation. You may bring all of Europe, hut none of Asia and none of Africa into our partnership." •• Let us see," -aid Mr. Clark, "how that may be. Take the gentleman's own ground that government is a partner-hip. and those who did not enter into it ami take an active part in it can nol he citizens. 1- a woman a citizen under our Constitution?" •• Not t,. vote," said Mr. Davis. " I did not ask about voting," -aid Mr. ('kirk. "The gentle- man .-aid awhile ago that voting did nol constitute citizenship. I want to know if she is a citizen. ( 'an she not sue and he ,-iied, contract, and exercise the rights of a citizen'.'" "So can a free negro," -aid Mr. Davis. "Then, if a free negro can do all that," said Mr. ('lark: "why i- he not a citizen '.'" "Because hi' is no part of the governing power: thai i< the reason," Mi - . 1 >a\ i- replied. '• 1 den} that," said Mr. ( 'lark, " because in some of the States he is a part of the governing power. The Senator only begs the question; it onl} comes hack to this, that a nigger is a nigger." j Laughter, j "That i-> the wlmle of it," said Mr. Davis. CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 203 "That La the whole of the gentleman's logic." said Mr. Clark. In answer to the statement insisted on by Mr. Davis, "You can not make a citizen of any body that is not a foreigner/' Mr. Johnson said : " That would be an extraordinary condition for the country to be in. Here are four million negroes. They are not foreigner.-, because they were born in the United States. They have no foreign allegiance to renounce, because they owed no foreign alle- giance. Their allegiance, whatever it was, was an allegiance to the Government of the United States alone. They can not come. therefore, under the naturalizing clause; they can not come, of course, under the statutes passed in pursuance of the power con- ferred upon Congress by that clause; but does it follow from that that vou can not make them citizens ; that the Congress of the United States, vested with the whole legislative power belonging to the Government, having within the limits of the United States four million people anxious to become citizens, and when you are anxious to make them citizens, have no power to make them citi- zens? It seems to me that to state the question is to answer it. "The honorable member reads the Constitution as if it said that none but white men should become citizens of the United States; but it says no such thing, and never intended, in my judgment, to say any such thing. If it had designed to exclude from all participation in the rights of citizenship certain men on account of color, and to have confined, at all times thereafter, citizenship to the white race, it is but fair to presume, looking to the character of the men who framed the Constitution, that they would have put that object beyond all possible doubt ; they would have said that no man should be a citizen of the United States except a white man, or rather would have negatived the riffht of the negro to become a citizen by saving that Congress might pass uniform rules upon the subject of the naturalization of white immigrants and nobody else; but that they did not do. They left it to Congress. Congress, in the exercise of their dis- cretion, have thought proper to insert the term 'white' in the naturalization act; but they may strike it out, and if it should be stricken out, I do not think any lawyer, except my friend from Kentucky, would deny that a black man could be natural- ized, and by naturalization become a citizen of the United Stat.-. "But to go back to the point from which the questions of my 204 THE TIIIBTIXJ.YTJ/ CONGRESS. honorable friend from Kentucky caused me to dig ess, we have now within the United States four million colored people, the ndants of Africans, whose ancestors were brought into the United States as chattels. It was because of that condition that they were considered as not entitled to the rights of citizenship. We have pul an end to thai condition. We have said that at all times hereafter men of any color that nature may think proper to impress upon the human frame, shall, if within the United Si be free, and not property. Then, we have four million colored people who are now a- free as we arc; and the only question is, whether, being free, they can not be clothed with the rights of citizenship. The honorable member from Kentucky says no, be- cause the naturalization clause does not include them. 1 have attempted to answer that. lie says no, because the ad - -1 in pursuance of that clause does not include them. 1 have answi that by saying that that act in that particular may I • *ed." On the following day. February 1st, the discussion of the bill was resumed by Mr. Morrill, of Maine. He said of the bill: •' Ii marks an epoch in the history of this country, and from this time forward the legislation takes a fresh and a new departure. Sir, to-day is the only hour since this Government began when i: was possible to have enacted ii. Such ha- been the situation of politics in this country, nay, sir, such have been the provisions of the fundamental law of this country, that such legislation hitherto has never been possible. There has been no time since the foundation of the Government when an American Congress could by possibility have enacted such a law, or with propriety have made such a declaration. What is this declaration'.' All persons born in this country are citizens. That never was so be- fore. Although I have >aid that by the fundamental principles of American law all persons were entitled to be citizen- by birth, we all know that there w a- an exceptional condition in the Gov- ernment of the country which provided for an exception to this general rule. Here were four million -lave- in this country that were not citizens, not citizens by the general policy <•;' the coun- try, not citizen- mi account of their condition of Servitude; up to this hour they could not have been treated by us as citizen-; long as thai provision in the Constitution which recognized this ptional condition remained the fundamental law of the coun- try, such a declaration a- this would not have been l< gal, could CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 205 not have been enacted by Congress. I hail it, therefore, as a declaration which typifies a grand fundamental change in the politics of the country, and which change justifies the declaration now. " The honorable Senator from Kentucky has vexed himself somewhat, I think, with the problem of the naturalization of American citizens. As he reads it, only foreigners can be natu- ralized, or, in other words, can become citizens; and upon his assumption, four million men and women in this country are out- side not only of naturalization, not only of citizenship, but outside of the possibility of citizenship. Sir, he has forgotten the grand principle both of nature and nations, both of law and politics, that birth gives citizenship of itself. This is the fundamental principle running through all modern politics both in this coun- try and in Europe. Every-where, where the principles of law have been recognized at all, birth by its inherent energy and force gives citizenship. Therefore the founders of this Govern- ment made no provision — of course they made none — for the naturalization of natural-born citizens. The Constitution speaks of 'natural-born,' and speaks of them as citizens in contradistinc- tion from those who are alien to us. Therefore, sir, this amend- ment, although it is a grand enunciation, although it is a lofty and sublime declaration, has no force or efficiency as an enact- ment. I hail it and accept it simply as a declaration. " The honorable Senator from Kentucky, when he criticises the methods of naturalization, and rules out, for want of power, four million people, forgets this general process of nations and of nature by which every man, by his birth, is entitled to citizen- ship, and that upon the general principle that he owes allegiance to the country of his birth, and that country owes him protec- tion. That is the foundation, as I understand it, of all citizen- ship, and these are the essential elements of citizenship: allegiance on the one side, and protection on the other." In reply to statements made by Mr. Davis, Mr. Morrill re- marked : " The Senator from Kentucky denounces as a usurpation this measure, and particularly this amendment, this declaration. He says it is not within the principles of the Constitution. That it is extraordinary I admit. That the measure is not ordinary is most clear. There is no parallel, I have already said, for it in the history of this country; there is no parallel for it in the 206 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGEE, history of any country. Xn nation, from die foundation of g ernraent, has ever undertaken to make a Iegislativ< leclaration so broad. Why? Because no nation hitherto has ever cherished a liberty so universal. The ancient republics wereall exceptional in their liberty; they all had excepted classes, subjected classes, which were not the subject of government, and, fcheref re, they could ii"! so legislate. Thai it is extraordinary and without a ■ parallel in the history of this Government, or of any other, does not affect the character of the declaration itself. "The Senator from Kentucky tells us thai the proposition is revolutionary, and he thinks that is an objection. I I con- cede that it is revolutionary. 1 admit that this sp lation is absolutely revolutionary. But arc we not in the midst of revolution".' Is the Senator from Kentucky utterly oblivious to the grand results of four years of war? Are we not in the midst (if a civil and political revolution which has changed the fundamental principles of our Government in som< ects? Sir, is it no revolution that you have changed the entire - - of servitude in this country".' Is it no revolution that now you can no longer talk of two systems of civilization in this country".' Four short years back, I remember to have listened to eloquent speeches in this chamber, in which we were told that there was a grand antagonism in our institutions; that there | 'civ- ilizations; that there was a civilization based on servitude, and that it was antagonistic to the free institutions of the country. Where is that'.' Cone forever. That result is a revolution grander and sublimer in its consequences than the world has witnessed hitherto. •• I accept, then, what the Senator from Kentucky thinks - obnoxious. We are in the midst of revolution. We have revo- lutionized this Constitution of ours to that extent: and every substantial change in the fundamental constitution of a country i- a revolution. Why, sir, the Constitution even provides for revolutionizing itself. Nay, more, it contemplate-- it; contem- plate- that in the changing phases of life, civil and political, changes in the fundamental law will become necessaryj and is it needful tor me to advert to the facts and events of the last four or five year- to justify the declaration that revolution here is not only radical and thorough, but the result of the events of the last foul years? Of course, I mean to contend in all I say that the CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 207 revolution of which I speak should be peaceful, as on the part of the Government here it has been peaceful. It grows out, to be sure, of an assault upon our institutions by those; whose pur- pose it was to overthrow the Government; but, on the part of the Government, it has been peaceful, it has been within the forms of the Constitution ; but it is a revolution nevertheless. " But the honorable Senator from Kentucky insists that it is a usurpation. Not so, sir. Although it is a revolution radical, as I contend, it was not a usurpation. It was not a usurpation, because it took place within the provisions contemplated in the Constitution. More than that, it was a change precisely in har- mony with the general principles of the Government. This great change which has been wrought in our institutions was in har- mony with the fundamental principles of the Government. The change which has been made has destroyed that which was ex- ceptional in our institutions; and the action of the Government in regard to it was provoked by the enemies of the Government. The opportunity was afforded, and the change which has been wrought was in harmony with the fundamental principles of the Government." The Senator from Maine opposed the theory that this is a Government exclusively for white men. He remarked : " It is said that this amendment raises the general question of the an- tagonism of the races, which, we are told, is a well-established fact. It is said that no rational man, no intelligent legislator or statesman, should ever act without reference to that grand his- torical fact ; and the Senator from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Cowan,] on a former occasion, asserted that this Government, that Amer- ican society, had been established here upon the principle of the exclusion, as he termed it, of the inferior and the barbarian races. Mr. President, I deny that proposition as a historical fact. There is nothing more inaccurate. No proposition could possibly be made here or anywhere else more inaccurate than to say that American society, either civil or political, was formed in the in- terest of any race or class. Sir, the history of the country does not bear out the statement of the honorable Senator from Penn- sylvania. Was not America said to be the land of refuge'/ lias it not been, since the earliest period, held up as an asylum for the oppressed of all nations "? Hither, allow me to ask, have not all the peoples of the nations of the earth come for an asylum 208 THE TinRTY-XL.XTll CONGEE, and for refuge? All the nations of the earth, and all the varie- ties of the races of the nations of the earth, have gathered here. In the early settlements of the country, the Irish, the French, the Swede, the Turk, the Italian, the Moor, and so 1 might enumerate all the races, and all the variety of races, came hei and it is a fundamental mistake to suppose that settlement was begun here in the interests of any class, or condition, or race, or interest. This Western Continent was looked to as an asylum for the oppressed of all nations and of all races. Hither all nations ami all races have come. Bere, sir, upon the -rand plane of republican democratic liberty, they have undertaken to work out the greal problem of man*.- capacity for .self-government without stint or limit." Mr. Davis then made another -peech in opposition to the hill. When the hour for adjournment had arrived, and Mr. Johnson interrupted him with a proposition that "the hill be passed over for to-day," Mr. Davis said, "I am wound up, and am obliged to run down." The Senate, however, adjourned at a late hour, and resumed the hearing of Mr. Davis on the following day. In alluding to Mr. Johnson's strictures on hi- assertion that Congress had no power to confer the right of citizenship on "the native horn negro," Mr. Davis said: "The honorable Senator, [Mr. Johnson,] as 1 said the other day, is one of the ablest law- yers, and, I believe, the ablest living lawyer in the land. I have n gentlemen sometimes so much the lawyer that they had to abate some of the state-man [laughter]; and I am not certain, I would not say it was .so — 1 will not arrogate to myself to say so -hut sometimes a suspicion flashes across my mind that that i- precisely the predicament of my honorable friend. "I maintain that a negro can not he made a citizen by Con- gress; he can not he made a citizen by any naturalization law-. because the naturalization laws apply to foreigners alone. No man can -hake the legal truth of that position. They apply to foreigners alone; ami a negro, an Indian, or any other person horn within the United State-, not being a foreigner, can not he naturalized; therefore they can not he made citizens hy the uni- form rule established by Congress under the Constitution, and there is no other rule. Congress has no power, as I -aid before, to naturalize a citizen. They could not he made citizen.- hy treaty. Jt* they arc made BO at all, it is hy their hirth, and the CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 20$ locality of their birth, and the general operation and effect of our Constitution. If they are so made citizens, that question is a ju- dicial question, not a legislative question. Congress has no power in enlarge or extend any of the provisions of the Constitution which bear upon the birth or citizenship of negroes or Indians born in the United States. "If there was any despot in Europe or in the world that wanted a master architect in framing and putting together a despotic and oppressive law, I would, if my slight voice could reach him, by all means say to him, Seek the laboratory of the Senator from Illinois. If he has not proved himself an adept in this kind of legislation, unconstitutional, unjust, oppressive, iniquitous, unwise, impolitic, calculated to keep forever a sever- ance of the Union, to exclude from all their constitutional rights, privileges, and powers under the Government eleven States of the Union — if he has not devised such a measure as that, I have not reason enough to comprehend it. Mr. Davis closed his speech by saying: "Was it for these fruits and these laws that we went into this war? Was it for these fruits and these laws and these oppressions that two million and a quarter of men were ordered into the field? Was it that the American people might enjoy these as the fruits of the tri- umphant close of this war, that hundreds of thousands of them have been mutilated on the battle-field and by the diseases of the camp, and that a debt of four or five thousand million dollars has been left upon the country? If these are to be the results of the war, better that not a single man had been marshaled in the field nor a single star worn by one of our officers. These military gentlemen think they have a right to command and control every-where. They do it. They think they have a right to do it here, and we are sheep in the hands of our shear- ers. We are dumb." Mr. Trumbull said : " I will occupy a few moments of the at- tention of the Senate, after this long harangue of the Senator from Kentucky, which he closed by declaring that we are dumb in the presence of military power. If he has satisfied the Senate that he is dumb, I presume he has satisfied the Senate of all the other positions he has taken ; and the others are about as absurd as that declaration. He denounces this bill as ' outrageous/ ' most 14 no Tin-: T////m-.\v.\-r// congress. mom ' 'abominable/ 'oppressive, 5 'iniquitous,' 'unconstitu- tional,' ' void.' " No • . what i- this bill that is obnoxious to such terrible epi- thets? It i- a bill providing that all people shall have equal rights. 1- in>t thai abominable"? I- not that iniquitous? I- Dot that monstrous? [snot that terrible on white men ? [Laughl When was such legislation as this ever thought of l<>r white nun".' "Sir, this Will applies to white men as well as black men. It declares that all men in the United State- shall be entitled to the same civil rights, the right to the fruit of their own labor, the right to make contracts, the right to buy and sell, and enjoy lib- erty and happiness; and that is abominable and iniquitous and unconstitutional! Could any thing be more monstrous or more abominable than for a member of the Senate- to rise in his place and denounce with such epithets as these a bill, the only object of which i< to secure equal rights to all the citizens of the coun- try — a hill that protects a white man just as much as a black man? With what consistency and with what face can a Senator in his place here say to the Senate and the country, that this i- a hill for the benefit of the black men exclusively, when there is no such distinction in it, and when the very object of the bill is to break down all discrimination between black men and white men '.' " Mr. Guthrie, of Kentucky, said: "My doctrine i- that slavery ts no longer in this country; that it i- impossible to exist in the face of that provision; and with slavery tell the laws of all the State- providing for slavery, every one of them. 1 do nut see what benefit can arise from repealing them by this bill, be- cause, if they are not repealed by the Constitution as amended, this bill could no- repeal them. 1 hope that all the State- in which slavery formerly existed will accept that constitutional pro- vision in good faith. I myself accepl it in good faith. Believing that all the laws authorizing slavery have fallen, I have advised the people of Kentucky, and 1 would advise :ill the State-, to put Vfricans upon the same footing that the white- are in rela- tion to civil rights. They have all the rights that were formerly accorded to tin' free colored population in all the States just as fully this day a- they will have after this bill ha- passed, and they will continue to have them. •■ Now, to the State- belong the government of their own popu- CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. \ ! I lation, and tliose within their borders, upon all subjects. We, in Kentucky, prescribe punishment for those who violate the laws; we prescribe it for the white population; we prescribe it for the free African population, and we prescribe it for the slave popula- tion. All the laws prescribing punishment for slaves fell with slavery, and they were subject afterward only to the penal:' - which were inflicted upon the free colored population, they then being five. Slaves, for many offenses, were punished far less than the free colored people. No slave was sent to the penitentiary and punished for stealing, or any thing of that kind, whereas a free person was. But all these States will now, of course, remodel their laws upon the subject of offenses. I would advise that there should be but one code for all persons, black as well as white ; that there shall be one general rule for the punishment of crime in the different States. But, sir, the States must have time to act on the subject; and yet we are here preparing laAvs and penalties, and proposing to carry them into execution by military authority, before the States have had time to legislate, and even before some of their Legislatures have had time to convene. "Kentucky has had her share of talking here, and, sir, .-he has had her share of suffering during the war. At one time she was invaded by three armies of the rebellion; all but seven or eight counties of the State, at one time, were occupied by its ar- mies, and her whole territory devastated by guerrillas. We have suffered in this war. We have borne it as best we could. We feel it intensely that now, at the end of the war, we should be subjected to a military despotism, our houses liable to be entered at any time when our families are at rest, by military men who can arrest and send to pri.son without warrant, and we are obliged to go, and we are obliged to pay any fines they may impose. I do not believe that you will lose any thing if you pause before passing such legislation as this, and establishing these military despotisms, for we do not know where they are to end." Mr. Hendricks, of Indiana, had proposed to strike out the last clause of the bill, which provided that " such part of the land and naval forces of the United States, or of the militia," as should be necessary, might be employed to prevent the violation, and en- force the due execution of this act. The Senator from Indiana opposed the bill on the ground that it employed the machinery THE THIRTY-NINTH CONG, Fugitive Slave Law, and that it was to ! forced by the military authority of the United States. He said: "This liill is a wasp; its sting is in its tail. Sir, what is this bill? It provides, in the firsl place, that the civil righl if all men, without regard to color, shall be equal; and. in the ' place, that if any man shall violate that principle by his conduct, he shall be responsible to the court ; that he may b< pn criminally and punished for the crime, or he may be sued in a civil action and damages recovered by the part) wr< nged. I- not that broad enough? Do Senators want to ir" further than this? To recognize the civil rights of the colored people as qua) to the civil rights of the white people, I understand to be as for as Sen- ators desire to go; in the language of the Senator from M chusetts [Mr. Sumner], to place all men upon an equality before the law: ami that is proposed in regard to their civil rights." In reference to the reenactmenl of the odious features of the Fugitive Slave Law in this hill. Mr. Hendricks said : " I recol- how the blood of the people was made to run cold within them when it was said that the white man was required to run after the fugitive .-lave; that the law of L850 made you and me, my brother Senator-;, slave-catchers; that th< mnitatus could he called to execute a writ of the law, for the recovery of a runaway slave, under the provisions of the Constitution of the United States; and the whole country was agitated because of it. Now slavery is gone; the negro is to he established upon a plat- form of civil equality with the white man. That is the proposi- tion. But we do not stop there; we an' to n • a law that nearly all of you -aid was wicked and wrong; and for what pur- pose? Not to pursue the negro any longer; not for the purpose of catching him; not for the purpose of catching the great crimi- nals of the land; luit for the purpose of placing it in the power of any deputy marshal in any county of the country to call upon yon and me. and all the body of the people, to pursue some white man who is running for his liberty, because - »i negro has charged him with denying to him equal civil rights with the white man. 1 thought, sir, that that frame-work was enough; 1 thought, when yon placed under the command of the marshal, in every county of the land, all the body '>t' the people, and put every one upon the track of the fleeing white man, that that was enough ; but it is not. For the purpose of the enforcement of CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. this law, the President is authorized to appoint somebody who is to have the command of the military and naval forces of the United States — for what purpose? To prevent a violation of this law, and to execute it. "You clothe the marshals under this bill with all the powers that were given to the marshals under the Fugitive Slave Law. That was regarded as too arbitrary in its provisions, and you re- pealed it. You said it should not stand upon the statute-book any longer; that no man, white or black, should be pursued under the provisions of* that law. Now, you reenact it, and you claim it as a merit and an ornament to the legislation of the country ; and you add an army of officers and clothe them with the power to call upon any body and every body to pursue the running white man. That is not enough, but you must have the military to be called in, at the pleasure of whom? Such a person as the President may authorize to call out the military forces. Where it shall be, and to whom this power shall be given, we do not know. 1 ' Mr. Lane, of Indiana, replied to the argument of his colleague. He said : " It is true that many of the provisions of this bill, changed in their purpose and object, are almost identical with the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law, and they are denounced by my colleague in their present application; but I have not heard any denunciation from my colleague, or from any of those associated with him, of the provisions of that Fugitive Slave Law which was enacted in the interest of slavery, and for purposes of oppression, and which was an unworthy, cowardly, disgraceful concession to Southern opinion by Northern politicians. I have suffered no suitable opportunity to escape me to denounce the monstrous char- acter of that Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. All these provisions were odious and disgraceful in my opinion, when applied in the interest of slavery, when the object was to strike down the rights of man. But here the purpose; is changed. These provisions are in the interest of freemen and of freedom, and what was odious in the one case becomes highly meritorious in the other. It is an instance of poetic justice and of apt retribution that God has caused the wrath of man to praise Him. I stand by every provision of this bill, drawn as it is from that most iniquitious fountain, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. "Then my colleague asks, Why do you invoke the power of the THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS military to enforce these laws? Ami he says that constables, and sheriffs, and marshals, when they have process to serve, bav< a right to call upon the posse comitatus, the body of the whole I iple, i" <:.i : heir writs. Here is a justice of the peace in - uli Carolina or Georgia, or a county cou a circuit court, ■ .! is called upon to execute tins law. They appoint their own rshal, their deputy marshal, or their constable, and he calls upon the possi comitatus. Neither the judge, nor the jury, nor officer, as we believe, is willing to execute the law. He may call upon the people, the body of the whole people, a body of rebels steeped in treason and rebellion to their lips, and they i execute it; and the gentleman seems wonderfully astonished that we should call upon the military power. We should not 1 gislate at all if we believed the State court- could or would honestly carry oul the provisions of the constitutional amendment ; but because we believe they will not do that, we give the Federal officers jurisdiction. • Bui what harm is to result from if.' Who i- to he oppress What white man fleeing, in the language of my colleague, pur- - ed by these harpies of the law. is in danger of having his rights - icken down? What doe- the hill provide? Jt places all men upon an equality, and unless the white man violate- the law, he i- in no danger. It take- no rights from any white man. It simply places others on the same platform upon which he stands; and if he would invoke the power of local prejudice to override the law.- of the country, this i- no < rovernment unless the military may be called in to enforce the order of the civil court- and obe- dience to the laws of the country." Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, said, in answer to some objec- tions to the hill urged by Mr. Guthrie: "The Senator tell- us * that the emancipated men ought to have their civil rights, that the black codes tell with slavery; hut the Senator forgets that at -i sis of the reorganized State- in their new Legislatures have passed laws wholly incompatible with the freedom of these freed- nien ; ami so atrocious are the provisions "l' these law-, and -• i rsistently are they carried into effect h\ the local authority . that General Thomas, in Mississippi, General Swayne, in Ala- bama, General Sickles, in South Carolina, and General Terry, in Virginia, have issued positive order-, forbidding the execution of the black law- that have jusl been passed. CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 215 "So unjust, so wk-kcd, so incompatible are these new black laws of tlic rebel States, made in defiance of the expressed will of the nation, that Lieutenant-general Grant lias been forced to is- sue that order, which sets aside the black laws of all these rebell- ious States against the freedmen, and allows no law to be en- forced against them that is not enforced equally against white men. This order, issued by General Grant, will be respected, obeyed, and enforced in the rebel States with the military power of the nation. Southern legislators and people must learn, if they are compelled to learn by the bayonets of the Army of the United States, that the civil rights of the freedmen must be and shall be respected; that these freedmen are as free as their late masters'; thai they shall live under the same laws, be tried for their viola- tion in the same manner, and if found guilty, punished in the same manner and degree. " This measure is called for, because these reconstructed Legis- latures, in defiance of the rights of the freedmen, and the will of the nation, embodied in the amendment to the Constitution, have enacted laws nearly as iniquitous as the old slave codes that dark- ened the legislation of other days. The needs of more than four million colored men imperatively eall for its enactment. The Constitution authorizes and the national will demands it. By a series of legislative acts, by executive proclamations, by military orders, and by the adoption of the amendment to the Constitution by the people of the United States, the gigantic system of human slavery that darkened the land, controlled the policy, and swayed the destinies of the republic has forever perished. Step by step we have marched right on from one victory to another, with the music of broken fetters ringing 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 Ls now "'No slave beneath that starry flag, The cmlilein of the free.' "By the will of the nation freedom and free institutions for alb chains and fetters for none, are forever incorporated in the fun- damental law of regenerated and united America. Slave codes and auction blocks, chains and fetters and blood-hounds, are things 216 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGEES 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 oew-bom <*i\il rights we are oow 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 1»- entertained b) the people of tin- I Fnited States." Mr. Cowan spoke again, and denouribed the section of the hill which provided for it- enforcement by the military. He said: "There it is; words can not make it plainer; reason can not eluci- date it; no language can strengthen it or weaken it, one way or the other. There is the question whether a military man. edu- cated in a military school, accustomed to supreme command, un- accustomed to the administration of civil law among a tree people, 1- 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 hi' intrusted with such a power. I, for my part, will never agree to it ; and 1 should feel myself recreant to every duty that T 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 con- stitutional liberty, if I did not resist tin- and all similar projects." Mi-. Trumbull answered some objections to the hill. "The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Hendricks] objects to the hill because he says that the same provisions which were enacted in the old Fugitive Slave Law arc incorporated into this, ami that it has i heralded to the country that it was a great achievement to do this; and he insists that if those provisions of law were odious and wicked and wrong which provided for punishing men lor aiding the slave to .-cape, therefore they must he wicked and wrong now when they are employed tin- the punishing a man who undertakes to put a person into slavery. Sir, that doe- not follow at all. A law may he iniquitous and unjust and wrong which undertakes to punish another for doing an innocent act. which would he righteous and just and proper to punish ;t man for doing a wicked act. We have upon our statute-1 ks a law punishing a man who commits murder, because die commis- CIVIL RIGHTS BILL J 17 sion of murder is a high crime, and the party who does it for- feits his right to live; but would it be just to apply the law which punishes a person for committing murder to an innocent person who had killed another accidentally, without malice? That is the difference. It is the difference between right and wrong, between good and evil. True, the features of the Fugitive Slave Law were abominable when they were used for the purpose of punishing, not negroes, as the Senator from Indiana says, but white men. The Fugitive Slave Law was enacted for the pur- pose of punishing white men who aided to give the natural gift of liberty to those who were enslaved. Now, sir, we propose to use the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law for the purpose of punishing those who deny freedom, not those who seek to aid persons to escape to freedom. The difference was too clearly pointed out by the colleague of the Senator [Mr. Lane] to justify me in taking further time in alluding to it. "But the Senator objects to this bill because it authorizes the calling in of the military; and he asserts that it is the only law in which the military is brought in to enforce it. The Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cowan] follows this up with a half hour's speech, denouncing this law as obnoxious to the. objection that it is a military law, that it is taking the trial of persons for offenses out of the hands of the courts and placing them under the military — a monstrous proposition, he says. Is that so? What is the law? "It is a court bill; it is to be executed through the courts, and in no other way. But does the Senator mean to say it is a military bill because the military may be called in, in aid of the execution of the law through the courts ? Does the Senator from Pennsylvania — I should like his attention, and that of the Sena- tor from Indiana, too — deny the authority to call in the military in aid of the execution of the law through the courts? "Let me read a clause from the Constitution, which seems to have been forgotten by the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from Indiana. The Senator from Pennsylvania, who has denounced this law, has been living under just such a law for thirty years, and it seems never found it out. What says the Constitution? 'Congress shall have power to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union.' "Then, can not the militia prevent persons from violating the 818 THE TIIIE 'D'-.XI.V Til COJ\ G R ESS. law? They arc authorized by the Constitution to be called our for the purpose of executing the law, and here we have a law that is i" be carried into execution, and when you find pers< combined together to prevent its i si sution, you can not do any thing with them! Suppose that th tmty authorities in Mus- cogee County, Georgia, combine together to deny civil rights to i i i v.:\ colored man in that county. For the purpose of pre- venting it. before they have done any act, I say the militia may be called out to prevent them from committing an act. We are no! required to wait until the act is committed before any thing can be done. That was the doctrine which led to this rebellion, that we had do authority to do any thing till the conflict of arms came. I believed then, in 1860, that we had authority; and if it had been properly exercised, if the men who were threateni a rebellion, who wen- in this chamber defying the authority of the Government, had been arrested for treason— of which, in my judgment, by setting on fool armed expeditions against the coun- try, they were guilty ; — and if they had been tried and punished and executed for the crime. I doubt whether this great rebellion would ever have taken place. "There is another statute to which I beg leave to call the attention'of the Senator from Pennsylvania, and under which he has lived for thirty years without ever having known it ; and his rights have been fully protected. I wish to call atten- tion to a section from which the tenth section of the bill under consideration, at which the Senator from Indiana is so horrified, is copied word for word, and letter for letter. The act of March 10, 1836, f supplementary to an act entitled "An ad in addition to the act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States, and to repeal the acts therein mentioned.*' ap- proved 20th of April. IMS,' contains the very section that is in this bill, word for word. It did not horrify the country; it did not destroy all the liberties of the people; it did aoi consolidate all the powers of the Constitution in the Federal Government; it did not overthrow the courts, and it has existed now for thirty years! " The question was first taken on the amendment offered by Mr. Hendricks, to strike oul the tenth section of the bill. The vote resulted yea-, twelve; nay-, thirty-four. \i this stage of the proceedings, Mr. Saulsbury moved to CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 219 amend the bill by adding in the first section of the bill after the words "civil rights," the words, "except the right to vote in the States." Ee desired that if the Senate did not wish to con- fer the right of suffrage by this bill, they should say so. The question being taken on Mr. Saulsbury's amendment, the vote resulted .-even in the affirmative and thirty-nine in the negative. The vote was finally taken on the passage of the bill, which resulted thirty-three in the affirmative and twelve in the nega- tive. The following Senators voted in favor of the bill: Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Chandler, Clark, Connor, Cragin, Dixon, Fes- senden, Foot, Foster, Harris, Henderson, Howard, Howe, Kirkwood, Benry S. Lane, James H. Lane, Morgan, Morrill, Nye, Poland, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Trumbull, Wade, Willey, Williams, Wilson, and Yates — 33. The following voted against the bill, namely : Messrs. Buckalew, Cowan, Davis, Guthrie, Hendricks, McDougall, Nes- mith, Norton, Kiddle, Saulsbury, Stockton, and Van Winkle— 12. Five Senators were absent, to wit : Messrs. Creswell, Doolittle, Grimes, Johnson, and Wright — 5. THE THIRTY-NIjYTR CONGRESS. CHAPTER X. Till: CIVIL BIGHTS BILL IN" XHE HOUSE OF RE] ■ r ATI VI - The Bill referred ro the Judiciary Committee and reported back- Speech hv the Chairman of the Committee — Mr. Rogers — M ok — Mr. Thayer Mr. Eldridge — Mr. Thornton — Mr. Windom— Mr. Shel- LABARGER Mr BrOOMALL— Mr. RAYMOND — Ml!. DELANO — SJR. KERR — Amendment by Mr. Bingham — His Speech — Reply by his k — Disoussion closed by Mr. VVilson — Yeas and Nays on the the Bill — Mr. Le Blond's proposed title — Amendments p hhj House ai l EPTED BY THE Sen 0.\ the 5th of February, four days after the passage of the Civil Rights Bill in the Senate 3 it came before the House of Repre- sentatives, and having been read a first and second time, was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. On the Lst of March, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. \\ ilson, brought the bill again before the House, proposing some verbal amend- ments which were adopted. He then made a motion to recommit the bill, pending which, he made a speech on the merits of the measure. He referred to many definitions, judicial decisions, opinions, and precedents, under which negroes were entitled to the rights of American citizenship. In reference to the results of lii- researches, he said : " Precedents, hntli judicial and legislative, are found in sharp conflict concerning them. The line which divides these prece- dents is generally found to be the same which separates the early from the later days of the republic. The further the Govern- ment drifted from the old moorings of equalityaud human rights, the more numerous became judicial and legislative utterances in conflict with some of the leading features of this bill." 1 [e argued that the section of 1 1 1 « - hill pro^ iding for it.- enforce- ment l>v the military arm was uecessary, in order "'to fortify the declaratory portions of this hill with such sanctions as will rentier Pective." In conclusion In 1 -aid : CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. '.'/ "Can not protection be rendered to the citizen in the mode prescribed by the measure we now have under consideration? If not, a perpetual state of constructive war would be a great blessing to very many American citizens. If a suspension of martial law and :i restoration of the ordinary forms of civil law are to result in a subjection of our people to the outrages under the operation of State laws and municipal ordinances which these orders now prevent, then it were better to continue the present state of affairs forever. But such is not the ease; we may pro- vide by law for the same ample protection through the civil courts that now depends on the orders of our military command- ers ; and I will never consent to any other construction of our Constitution, for that would be the elevation of the military above the civil power. " Before our Constitution was formed, the great fundamental riffhts which I have mentioned belonged to every person who became a member of our great national family. No one surren- dered a jot or tittle of these rights by consenting to the formation of the Government. The entire machinery of Government, as organized by the Constitution, was designed, among other things, to secure a more perfect enjoyment of these rights. A legislative department was created, that laws necessary and proper to this end might be enacted; a judicial department was erected to expound and administer the laws ; an executive department was formed for the purpose of enforcing and seeing to the execution of these laws; and these several departments of Government possess the power to enact, administer, and enforce the laws 'necessarv and proper' to secure those rights which existed ante- rior to the ordination of the Constitution. Any other view of the powers of this Government dwarfs it, and renders it a failure in its most important office. "Upon this broad principle I rest my justification of this bill. I assert that we possess the power to do those things which gov- ernments are organized to do; that we may protect a citizen of the United States against a violation of his rights by the law of a single State; that by our laws and our courts we may inter- vene to maintain the proud character of American citizenship; that this power permeates our whole system, is a part of it, with- out which the States can run riot over every fundamental right belonging to citizens of the United States; that the right to TH /•: THIIl T 1 '- A 7. V 77/ COJ\ 'G R ESS. exercise this power depends upon no express delegation, but runs with the rights it i- designed to protect ; that we possess the same latitude in respecl to the selection of means through which to ex- ercise this power that belongs to us when a power pon ex- press delegation; and that the decisions which support the latter maintain the formerj And here, sir, I leave the bill to the con- sideration of the I [ouse." Mr. Rogers, of New Jersey, followed with an argumi a inst the bill, because it interfered with "States' Rights." Under its provisions, Congress would "enter the domain of a State and in- terfere with its internal police, statutes, and domestic regulations." 1 1" s:iid : "This act of legislation would destroy the foundations of the Government as they were laid and established by our fathers, who reserved to the State- certain privileges and immunities which ought sacredly to he preserved to them. " it' you had attempted to do it in the day- of those who were living at the time the Constitution was made, after the birth of that uoble instrument, the spirit of the heroes of the Revolution and the ghosts of the departed who laid down their lives in defense of the liberty of this country and of the rights of the States, would have come forth as witnesses against the deadly infliction, and the destruction of the fundamental principle of the sover- eignty of the States in violation of the Constitution, and the breaking down of the ties that hind the States, and the violation of the rights and liberties of the white men and white women of America. "If you pass this hill, you will allow the negroes of this coun- try to compete for the high office of President of the United State-. Because if they are citizens at all, they come within the meaning and letter of the Constitution of the United States, which allow- all natural-hom citizens to become candidates for the Presidency, and to exercise the duties of that office it" elected. " I am afraid of degrading this Government ; 1 am afraid of danger to constitutional liberty ; 1 am alarmed at the stupendous stride- which this Congress is trying to initiate; and I appeal in behalf of my country, in behalf of those that arc to come after u-, of generations yet unborn, as well as those now living, that conservative men on the other side should rally to the standard of sovereign and independent States, and blot out this idea which CIVIL EIGHTS BILL. 223 is inculcating itself here, that all the powers of the States must be taken away, and the power of the Czar of Russia or the Em- peror of France must be lodged in the Federal Government. "J ask von to stand by the law of the country, and to regulate these Federal and State systems upon the grand principles upon which they were intended to be regulated, that we may hand down to those who are to come after us this bright jewel of civil liberty unimpaired; and I say that the Congress or the men who will strip the people of these rights will be handed down to per- dition for allowing this bright and beautiful heritage of civil lib- erty embodied in the powers and sovereign jurisdiction of the States to pass away from us. "I am willing to trust brave men — men who have shown as much bravery as those who were engaged on battle-fields against the armed legions of the North ; because I believe that even when they were fighting against the flag of their country, the great mass of those people were moved by high and conscientious con- victions of duty. And in the spirit of Christianity, in the spirit which Jesus Christ exercised when he gave up his own life as a propitiation for a fallen world, I would say to those Southern men, Come here in the Halls of Congress, and participate with us in passing laws which, if constitutionally carried into effect, will control the interests and destinies of four millions people, mostly living within the limits of your States." Mr. Cook, of Illinois, replied : " Mr. Speaker, in listening to the very eloquent remarks of the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Rogers], I have been astonished to find that in his appre- hension this bill is designed to deprive somebody, in some State of this Union, of some right which he has heretofore enjoyed. I am onlv sorry that he was not specific enough ; that he did not inform us what rights are to be taken away. He has denounced this bill as dangerous to libertv, as calculated in its tendency at least to destroy the liberties of this country. I have examined this bill with some care, and, so far as I have been able to understand it, I have found nothing in any provision of it which tends in any way to take from any man, white or black, a single right he en- joys under the Constitution and laws of the United States. "I would have been glad if he would have told us in what manner the white men of this country would have been placed in a worse condition than they are now, if this becomes the law. THE THIRTY-XIXTR CONi This genera] denunciation and general assault of the bill, without pointing ou1 one single thing which i- t<> deprive one single man of any right he enjoys under the Government, seems t<> me not entitled t<> much weight. •• When those rights which are enumerated in this hill are de- nied to any class <>f men, <>n account "I' race or color, when they are subject t'> :i system of vagrant laws which sells them u very or involuntary servitude, which operates upon them as upon ii" other part of the community, they are not secured in the rights of freedom. It' a man can be sold, the man i- a -lave. If he is nominally freed by the amendment to the Constitution, he ha- nothing in the world he can call his own: he ha- simply the labor of his hands on which he can depend. Any combination of men in his neighborhood can prevent him from having any chance to support himself by his labor. They can pass a law that a man not supporting himself by labor shall he denied a vagrant, and that a vagrant shall he sold, [f this is the freedom we gave the men who have been fighting for us and in defense of* the Gov- ernment, if this i- all we have secured them, the President had far better never have issued the Proclamation of Emancipation, and the country had far better never have adopted the great or- dinance of fre< dom. "Doe- any man in this House believe that the- people can he safely left in these States without the aid of Federal Legislation or military power'.' Doc- any one believe that their freedom can be preserved without this aid".' If any man does so believe, he is strangely blind to the history of the past year; strangely blind to the enactments passed by Legislatures touching these freedmen. And 1 shuddered a- I heard the honorable gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Rogers] claiming that he was speaking and thinking in the spirit which animated the Savior of mankind when he made atonement for our race; that it was in that spirit he was acting when he was striving to have these people left utterly de- fenseless in the hands of men who were proving, day by day, month l>v month, that they de-ire to oppress them, tor they had been nude free against their consent. Every act of legislation, every expression of opinion on their part, proves that these peo- ple would be again enslaved it' they were not protected by the military arm of the Federal Government; without that they would lie slaves to-day. And 1 submit, with all deference, that CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. it is any thing but the spirit which the gentleman claims to have exercised, which prompted the argument he has made. "For myself, I trust that this bill will be passed, because I consider it the most appropriate means to secure the end desired, and that these people will be protected. I trust that we will say to them, Because upon our call you aided us to suppress ll : hellion, because the honor and faith of the nation were pi sdged for your protection, we will maintain your freedom, and redeem that pledge." On the following day, the House of Representatives resumed the consideration of this bill. A speech was made by Mr. Thayer, of Pennsylvania. He said : "This bill is the just sequel to, and the proper completion of, that great measure of national redress which opened the dungeon- doors of four million human beings. Without this, in my judg- ment, that great act of justice will be paralyzed and made useless. With this, it will have practical effect, life, vigor, and enforce- ment. It has been the fashion of gentlemen, holding a certain set of opinions, in this House to characterize that great measure to which I have referred as a revolutionary measure. " Sir, it was a revolutionary measure. It was one of the great- est, one of the most humane, one of the most beneficial revolu- tions which ever characterized the history of a free State; but it was a revolution which, though initiated by the conflict of arms and rendered necessary as a measure of war against the public enemy, was accomplished within and under the provisions of the Constitution of the United States. It was a revolution for the relief of human nature, a revolution which gave life, liberty, and hope to millions whose condition, until then, appeared to be one of hopeless despair. It was a revolution of which no freeman need be ashamed, of which every man who assisted in it will, I am sure, in the future be proud, and which will illumine with a great glory the history of this country. "There is nothing in this bill in respect to the employment of military force that is not already in the Constitution of the United States. The power here conferred is expressly given by that in- strument, and has been exercised upon the most stupendous scale in the suppression of the rebellion. What is this bill? I hope gentlemen, even on the opposite side of the House, will not suf- fer their minds to be influenced by any such vague, loose, and 15 THE TfflRTY-.XLYTH CONGRESS. groundless denunciations as these which haw proceeded from the gentleman from New Jersey. The bill, after extending these fundamental immunities of citizenshi]\to all classes of people in the United States, -imply provides means for the enforcement of these rights and immunities. ETow? No! by military force, not through the instrumentality of military commanders, not through any military machinery whatever, l>ut through the quiet, ified, firm, and constitutional forms of judicial procedure. The bill seeks to enforce these rights in the same manner and with the same sanctions under and by which other laws of the United States arc enforced. It imposes duties upon the judicial tribunals of the country which require the enforcement of these rights. It provides for the administration of laws to protect I rights. It provides for the execution of laws to enforce them. [s there any thing appalling in that? I- that a military despot- ism? Sir. it is a strange abuse of language to say that a mili- tary despotism is established by wholesome and equal laws. Yei tin' gentleman declaimed by tin- hour, in vague ami idle terms, against this hill, which has nut a single offensive, oppressive, unjust, unusual, or tyrannical feature in it. These civil rights and immunities which are to be secured, ami which no man can conscientiously say ought to be denied, arc to he enforced thn the ordinary instrumentalities of courts of justice. •■ While engaged in this great work of restoration, it concerns our honor that we forget not those who are unable to help them- selves; who, whatever may have been the misery and wretched- - of their former condition, were on our side in the great struggle which ha- closed, and whose rights we can tot disregard or neglect without violating the most sacred obligations of duty and of honor. To us they look tin- protection against the wr< with which they are threatened. To us alone can they appeal in their helplessness for Buccor and defense. To us they hold out to-day their supplicating hands, asking tor protection tor them- selves and their posterity. We can not disregard this appeal, and -tand acquitted before the country and the world of basely abandoning to a miserable fate those who have a right to demand the protection of your flag and the immunities guaranteed to every freeman by your Constitution." Mi-. Eldridge, of Wisconsin, opposed the hill, in a speech of which tin' following arc the concluding remark-: CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. $27 " I had hoped that this subject would be allowed to rest. Gen- tlemen refer us to individual cases of wrong perpetrated upon the freedmen of the South as an argument why we should extend the Federal authority into the different States to control the action of the citizens thereof. But, I ask, has not the South submitted to the altered state of things there, to the late amendment of ( Constitution, to the loss of their slave property, with a cheerful- ness and grace that we did not expect? Have they not acqui- esced more willingly than Ave dared to hope? Then why not trust them? Why not meet them with frankness and kindness? Why not encourage them with trust and confidence? " I deprecate all these measures because of the implication they carry upon their face, that the people who have heretofore owned slaves intend to do them wrong. I do not believe it. So far as my knowledge goes, and so far as my information extends, I be- lieve that the people who have held the freedmen slaves will treat them with more kindness, with more leniency, than those of the North who make such loud professions of love and affection for them, and are so anxious to pass these bills. They know their nature; they know their wants; they know their habits; they have been brought up together, and have none of the prejudices and unkind feelings which many in the North would have toward them. " I do not credit all these stories about the general feeling of hostility in the South toward the negro. So far as I have heard opinions expressed upon that subject, and I have conversed with many persons from that section of the country, they do not blame the negro for any thing that has happened. As a general thing, he was faithful to them and their interests until the army reached the place and took him from them. He has supported their wives and children in the absence of the husband- and lathers in the armies of the South. He has done for them what no one else could have done. They recognize his general good feeling toward them, and are inclined to reciprocate that feeling toward him. "I believe that is tin; general feeling of the Southern people to-day. The eases of ill-treatment are exceptional cases. They are like the cases which have occurred in the Northern States where the unfortunate have been thrown upon our charity. Take for instance the stories of the cruel treatment of the insane in the State of Massachusetts. They may have been barbarously THE Til I E T I -. \ 7. \ ' 77/ < '0. \ y ; R ES confined in the loath; - stated in particular in but is that any evidence of th< ral ill-will of thi le of the State of Massachusetts toward the insane? I- that any rea- son why the Federal arm should 1 tided to Massachus tts 1 control and protect the insane there? " It has also been said thai certain pauper- in certain have been badly used — paupers, too, who were white-. 1- that any reason why we should extend the arm of the !' ' eminent to those States to protect the poor who are thrown u] on the charities of the people there? Sir, we must yield to the altered state of things in I country. We must trusi the people; it i< our duty to do so; wi can not do otherwise. And the sooner we place ourselves in a position where we can win the confidence of our lai where our counsels will be heeded, where our advice ma} garded, the sooner will the people of the whole country be fully reconciled to each other and their changed relationship; tin - will all the inhabitants of our country be in the p — -- >n of all the rights and immunities essential to their prosperity and happim Mr. Thornton, of [llinois, feared there was "something hidden, something more than appears in the language" of the bill. He feared "a design to confer the right of suffrage upon the i a and urged that a proviso should he accepted "restricting the meaning of the word- 'civil rights and immunities.'" II' marked further: "'The most serious objection that 1 have to this lull i-. that it i< an interference with the rights of the South. It was remarked by my friend from Wisconsin that it ha- often I intimated on this floor, and throughout the country, that whenever a man talks about either the ( Jonstitution or the rights of tin 3l - either a traitor or a sympathizer with treason. I do nol sume that the States are sovereign. They are subordinate I Federal Government. Sovereignty in thi- country i- in tl pie, hut the State- have certain rights, and those right ibso- lutclv necessary to the maintenance of our system of gover What are those rights? The right to determine ami fix the I status of the inhabitants of the respective States; the local powers of self-government ; the power to regulate all the relations that exist between husband and wife, parent ami child, guardian and ward ; all the fireside and home rights, which are nearer and d to us than all others. CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. !) "Sir, this is but a stepping-stone to a centralization of the Government and the overthrow of the local powers of the States. Whenever that is consummated, then farewell to the beauty, strength, and power of this Government. There is nothing left but absolute, despotic, central power. It lives no longer but as a naked despotism. There is nothing left to admire and to cherish." Mr. Windom, of Minnesota, next obtained the floor. Referring to the speech of Mr. Rogers, he said: "I wish to make another extract from the speech of the gentleman from Xew Jersey. He siid, ' If you pass this bill, you will allow negroes to compete for the high office of the President of the United State.-.' You will actually allow them to compete for the Presidency of the United States ! As for this fear which haunts the gentleman from New Jersey, if there is a negro in the country who is so far above all the white men of the country that only four millions of his own race can elect him President of the United States over twenty-six millions of white people, I think wc ought to encourage such talent in the country. "Sir, the gentleman has far less confidence in the white race than I have, if he is so timid in regard to negro competition. Does he really suppose that black men are so far superior to white men that four millions of them can elect a President their own race against the wishes of thirty millions of ours? Ever since I knew any thing of the party to which the gentle- man belongs, it has entertained this same morbid fear of n< g competition ; and sometimes 1 have thought that if we were to contemplate the subject from their stand-point we would have more charity than we do for this timidity and nervous dread which haunts them. I beg leave, however, to assure the gentle- man that there is not the slightest danger of electing a black President, and that he need never vote for one, unless he thii him better fitted for the office than a white man." With more direct reference to the merits of the question, Mr. Windom said: "Our warrant f..r the passage of this bill is found in the genius and spirit of our institutions; but not in these alone. Fortunately, the great amendment which broke the shackles from every slave in the land contains an express provision that 'Con- gress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legis- lation.' ) THE THIRTY-MIJfTR COJVGRE& " When this amendment \\ I upon, ii was well underafo as it is now, that although the body of slavery might be destroyed, its spirit would -till live in the hearts of those who have sacrifi - much for its preservation, and that if the freedmen were left to the tender mercy of their former masters, to whosi heartless self- ishness lias been superadded a malignant desire for vengean< upon the negro for having aided us in crushing the rebellion, his idition would !"■ more intolerable thai: it was before the war. lence the broad grant of power was made to enable < longn -- nforce the spirit as well as the letter of the amendment. X ■■ in what way is it proposed to enforce if.' By denying to any one man a single right or j privilege which he could otherwise con- stitutionally or properly enjoy? No. By conferring on any • ■■ person or class of persons a single right or immunity which every other person may not possess? By uo means. Does it give to the loyal negro any preference over the recent would-be assassins of the nation ".' Not at all. It merely declare- that hereafter there shall he no discrimination in civil rights or immunities among the citizens of any State or territory of the United States <>n account of race, color, or previous condition of slavery, and that every person, except such a- arc excluded by reason of crime, shall have ime right to enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, sell, hold, and convey real and per- sonal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and pro- lii j- for the security of person and property, ami shall lie subject to like punishment, pain.-, ami penalties, ami to none other. ■'We know, and the whole world know-, that when in the hour of our extremity we called upon the black race to aid US, we promised them not liberty only, hut all that that word liberty implies. All remember how unwilling we were to do any thing which would inure t<« the benefit of the negro. I recall with shame the fad thai when, live year- ago, the so-called Democ- racy—now Egyptians — were here in this capital, in the White House, in the Senate, and on this floor, plotting the destruction of the Government, and we were asked to appease them by sacri- ficing (he negro, two-thirds of both houses voted to rivet his chain- upon him SO 1 • * : 1 — :•- the republic >hoiild endure'. A widen- in- chasm yawned between the free and slave Stat< -. and we looked wildly around for thai wherewith it might he closed. In our ex- CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. tremitv we seized upon the negro, bound and helpless, and tried to cast him in. But an overruling Providence heard the cries of the oppressed, and hurled his oppressors into that chasm by hundreds of thousands, until the whole land was idled with mourning, yet still the chasm yawned. In our anguish and terror, we felt that the whole nation would be speedily ingulfed in one common ruin. It was then that the great emancipator and savior of his country, Abraham Lincoln, saw the danger and the remedy, and seizing- lour million bloody shackles, he wrenched them from their victims, and standing with these broken manacles in his hands upraised toward heaven, he invoked the blessing of the God of the oppressed, and cast them into the fiery chasm. That ottering was accepted, and the chasm closed. "When the reports from Port Hudson and Fort Wagner thrilled all loyal hearts by the recital of the heroic deeds of the black soldier, we were not reminded that if the negro were per- mitted to enjoy the same rights under the Government his valor helped to save that are possessed by the perjured traitors who sought its destruction, it would 'lead to a war of races.' O no! Then we were in peril, and felt grateful even to the negro, who stood between us and our enemies. Then our only hope of safety was in the brave hearts and strong arms of the soldier at the front. Now, since by the combined efforts of our brave soldiers, white and black, the military power of the South has been overthrown, and her Representatives are as eager to resume their places on this floor as five year- ago they were to quit them for a place in the rebel army, we are told that, having been victorious, it becomes a great nation like ours to be magnanimous. I answer, it is far more becoming to be just. I am willing to carry my magnanimity to the verge of justice, but not one step beyond. I will go with 1dm who goes furthest in acts of generosity toward our former enemies, unless those ads will be prejudicial to our friends. But when you advise me to sacrifice those who have stood by us during the war, in order to conciliate unrepentant rebels, whose hearts .-till burn with ill-suppressed hatred to the Government, I -corn your counsel." Mr. Shellabarger, of Ohio, said: "I agree with the gentleman on the other side of the Mouse, that this bid can not be passed under that clause of the Constitution which provides that Con- gress may pass uniform rules of naturalization. Under that THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. clause it is my opinion that the act of naturalization must not only !"• the act of the Government, but also tin- act of the indi- vidual alien, by which he renounces hi- former allegiance and accepts the new one. Ami that proposition and distinction will be found, 1 think, in all judicious arguments upon the subject. '• '1 here i- another class of persons well recognized, not only in our constitutional history, but also by the law- of nation-, who are not foreigners, who occupy an intermediate position, and that in- termediate position is defined by the laws of nations by the word 'Mii jects.' Subjects arc all persons who, being born in a given country, ami under a given government, do not owe an allegiance to any other government. "To that class in this country, according to the decisions our courts hitherto, belong A.merican Indians ami slaves, ami. according to the Dred Scott decision, persons of African descent whose ancestors were slaves. All these were subjects by every principle of international as well as of settled constitutional law in this country. ow. then, to that class belong the p. rs »ns who are natural- ized by this hill. It' they were not. indeed, citizens hitherto, they w ire ;it least subjects of this < rovernment, by reason of their birth, and by reason of the fact thai they owed no foreign allegiance. •'That brings me to the next remark, and it is this: that tl subjects, not owing any foreign allegiance, no individual act of theirs is required in order to their naturalization, because they owe no foreign allegiance to be renounced by their individual acts, and because, moreover, being domiciled in our own country. and continuing here to reside, it is the individual election of each member of the tribe, or race, or class, to accept our nationality; therefore, no additional individual act i- required in order to his citizen-hip. "That being proved, it i- competent for the nationality, or for the government, wherever that subject may reside, to naturalize that class of persons by treaty or by general law. as i- proposed by the amendment of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Ray- mond]. It is the act of the sovereign alone that is requisite to the naturalization of that class of persons, and it may he done either by a single act naturalizing entire race- of men. or by adopting the heads of families out of those races, or it may be done to any extent, greater or less, that may please the sovereign. CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. For this proposition, I refer gentlemen who desire to examine this subject to the authorities that may be found collected in any judicious work on public law, and they will find them very fully collected, certainly, in the notes to Wheaton. "Now, then, what power may do that act of naturalization, and how may it be exercised? That is also answered by these same authorities. It may be done in this country either by an act of Congress, or it may be done by treaty. It has been done again and again and again in both ways in this country. Jt was done once in the case of the Choctaw Indians, as you will find in the Statutes-at-Large, where, in case the heads of families desired to remain and not to remove to the West, it was pro- vided by the treaty of September 27, 1830, that those families should be naturalized as a class. "Then, again, it was done in the other way, by an act of Con- gress, in the case cited by my learned friend from Iowa [Mr. Wilson], in the case of the Stockbridge Indians. " It was done again, as you may remember, in the ease of the Cherokees, in December, 1835. There again a class was natur- alized by treaty." Some amendments having been proposed, the bill was recom- mitted to the Committee on the Judiciary, with the understand- ing that it should be returned for consideration on Thursday of the following week. Accordingly, on that day, March 8, the consideration of the bill being resumed, Mr, Broomall, of Pennsylvania, addressed the House. He viewed the bill as beneficent in its provisions, since it made no discrimination- against the Southern rebels, but granted them, as well as the negro, the rights of citizenship. "A question might naturally arise whether we ought again to trust those who have once betrayed us; whether we ought to give them the benefits of a compact they have once repudiated. Yet the spirit of forgiveness is so inherent in the American bosom, that no party in the country proposes to withhold from these people the advantages of citizenship; and this is saying much. With a debt that may require centuries tu pay; with so many living and mutilated witnesses of the horrors of war; with so many saddened homes, so many of the widowed and fatherL 3S pleading for justice, for retribution, if not revenge, it speaks well for the cause of Christian civilization in America that no party THE THIRTY-XIKTR CONGRESS. in the country proposes to deprive the authors of such innneas- urable calamity of the advantages of citizenship. •• !!ii! the election must lit- made. Some public legislative a<-t i- necessary to show the world that those who have forfeited all claims upon tin- Government are cot to be held to the strict ri of the law of their own invoking, the decision of the tribunal of their own choosing; that they an' to !>«• welcomed hack as the prodigal son, whenever they arc ready t<> return as the prodi- gal -"ii. ••The acl under consideration makes that flection. It- terms embrace the late rebels, ami it gives them the rights, priviL ami immunities of citizens of the CJuited State-, though it does not propose to exempt them from punishment lor their past (•rim •• 1 mi"ht consent that the glorious (Iced- of the last five years should lie 1. lotted from the country's history : that the trophies won on a hundred battle-fields, the sublime visible evidenc the heroic devotion of America's citizen soldiery, should he burned on the altar of r< ustruction. I might consent that thecemetery at Gettysburg should he razed to the -round; that its soil should lie submitted to the plow, and that the lamentation of the hen- should give place to the lowing of cattle. But there is a i ad winch 1 will neither he forced nor persuaded. 1 will never consent that the Government shall desert its allies in the South, ami surrender their rights and interests to the enemy, and in this 1 will make no distinction of caste or color, either among friends or foes." Mr. Raymond, of. New York, was impressed with the impor- tance of the measure. " WTiether we consider it by itself, simply as a proposed statute, or in its bearings upon the general question of the restoration of peace and harmony to the Union, I regard it as one of the most important bills ever presented to this House for it- ad ion, worthy, in every respect, to enlist the coolest and the calmest judgmenl of every member whose vote must he recorded upon it." lie was in favor of the first part of the bill, which declares "who shall be citizens of the United State-, and to declare that all shall be citizens without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, who are, have been, or shall be born within limits and jurisdiction of the United State-. CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. %35 "Now, sir, assuming-, as I do, without any further argument, that Congress has the power of admitting to citizenship this great class of persons just set free by the amendment to the Con- stitution of the United States abolishing slavery, I suppose 1 need not dwell here on the great importance to that class of persons of having this boon conferred upon them. "We have already conferred upon them the great, inestimable, priceless boon of personal liberty. I can not for one moment yield to what seems to be a general disposition to disparage the freedom we have given them. I think the fact that we have eon- ferred upon four million people that personal liberty and freedom from servitude from this time forward for evermore, is one of the highest and most beneficent acts ever performed by any Govern- ment toward so large a class of its people. "Having gone thus far, I desire to go on by successive steps still further, and to elevate them in all respects, so far as their faculties will allow and our power will permit us to do, to an equality with the other persons and races in this country. I desire, as the next step in the process of elevating that race, to give them the rights of citizenship, or to declare by solemn stat- ute that they are citizens of the United States, and thus secure to them whatever rights, immunities, privileges, and powers belong as of right to all citizens of the United States. I hope no one will be prepared or inclined to say this is a trifling boon. If we do SO estimate this great privilege, I fear we are scarcely in the frame of mind to act upon the great questions coming before us from day to day here. I, for one, am not prepared or inclined to disparage American citizenship as a personal qualification belong- ing to myself, or as conferred upon any of our fellow-citizens." Mr. Raymond expressed doubts as to the constitutionality of that part of the bill "that provides for that class of persons thus made citizens protection against anticipated inequality of legisla- tion in the several States." In this direction he was desirous of avoiding a veto. lie said : " Moreover, on grounds of expediency, upon which I will not dwell. 1 desire myself, and I should feel much relieved if I thought the House fully and heartily shared my anxiety, not to pass here any bill which shall be intercepted on its way to the statute-book by well-grounded complaints of unconstitutionality on the part of any other department of the Government." THE /////.' 7' )'-.\7.\77/ COJTGREIl Mr. Delano, of Ohio, followed, - _ loubts as to the constitutionality of the measure. II<- considered it a serious iu- tVii .t of the rights of the State-. Be -aid: " N sir, should this bill be passed, that law of the State might be over- thrown by tli«' power of < longn as. In my opinion, if we adopt the principle of this bill, we declare, in effect, that Congress has authority to go into th< - and manage and legislate with re- gard i" all the personal rights of the citizen — rights of life, lib- erty, and property. You render this Government no longer a Government of limited powers; you concentrate and consolidate here an extent of authority which will -wallow up all or nearly all of the rights of the States with respect to the property, the liberties, and the lives of its citizens." He added, near the close of his address: " I am not to be un- derstoo 1 as denying the power of this < rovernment, i specially that great war power which, when evoked, ha- no limit except as i; - limited by necessity and the laws of civilized warfare. But, - in time of peace I would not and 1 can not stand here and attempt the exercise of powers by this General Government, which, if car- ried out with all the logical consequences that follow their assump- tion, will, in my opinion, endanger the liberties of the country." Mr. Km-, of Indiana, maintained the theory that the States should settle questions of citizenship as relating to those within their borders; that "the privileges and immunities I itizeuship in the States arc required to be attained, if at all, laws or ( institutions of the States, and never in ■ •• of them." To sustain this theory, he read from a number of authorities, and finally remarked : "This bill rests upon a theory utterly inconsistent with, and in direct hostility to, every one of these authorities. It asserts the riehl of Congress to regulate the laws which shall govern in the acquisition and ownership of property in the States, and to del mine who may go there and purchase and hold property, and to protect such pci-on- in the enjoymenl of it. The right of the Stan- to regulate it- own internal and domestic affairs, to select its own local policy, and make and administer it- own laws, for the prot, ction and welfare of its own citizens, is denied. It ( can declare what rights and privileges shall be enjoyed in the State- Im the people of one e!a—, it can. by the same hind of rea- oing, determine what shall be enjoyed by every class. \\' h i CI I IL RIG FITS BIZ I. say who may go into and settle in and acquire property in a State, it can also say who shall not. [fit can determine who may tes- tily and sue in the courts of a State, it may equally determine who shall not. If it can order the transfer of suits from the Slate to the Federal courts, where citizens of the same State alone are parties, in such cases as may arise under this bill, it can, by parity of logic, dispense with State courts entirely. Congress, in short, may erect a great centralized, consolidated despotism in this capital. And such is the rapid tendency of such legislation as this bill proposes." On the succeeding day, March 9th, Mr. Wilson having de- manded the previous question, on the motion to recommit, was entitled to the floor, but yielded portions of his time to Mr. Bingham and Mr. Shellabargcr. The former had moved to amend the motion to recommit, by adding instructions "to strike out of the first section the words, 'and there shall be no discrimination in civil rights or immuni- ties among citizens of the United States, in any State or Terri- tory of the United States, on account of race, color, or previous condition of slavery,' and insert in the thirteenth line of the first section, after the word ' right,' the words, ' in every State and Territory of the United States.' Also, to strike out all parts of said bill which are penal, and which authorize criminal proceed- ings, and in lieu thereof to give to all citizens injured by denial or violation of any of the other rights secured or protected by said act, an action in the United States courts with double costs in all cases of recovery, without regard to the amount of damages ; and also to secure to such persons the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus." Mr. Bingham said: "And, first, I beg gentlemen to consider that I do not oppose any legislation which is authorized by the Constitution of my country to enforce in its letter and its spirit the bill of rights as embodied in that Constitution. I know that the enforcement of the bill of rights is the want of the republic. I know if it had been enforced in good faith in every State of the Union, the calamities, and conflicts, and crimes, and sacrifices of the past five years would have been impossible. "But I feel that I am justified in saying, in view of the text of the Constitution of my country, in view of all its past inter- pretations, in view of the manifest and declared intent of the men who framed it, the enforcement of the Bill of Rights, touching the THE TIITT1 D'-M.VTir CONGRESS. life, liberty, and property of every citizen of the republic, within every organized State of the Union, i< of the res< rved | - of ♦he States, to be enforced by State tribunals and by State officials, acting under the solemn obligations of an oath imposed upon them by the Constitution of the United States. Who can doubt this ■ conclusion who considers the words of the Constitution, ' the pow- ers not delegated in the United State- by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States resp ivelv, or to the people?' The Constitution doe- not delegate t<> the United State- the power to punish offense-- against the life, liberty, or property of the citizen in th 3 5, nor does it pro- hibit that power to the State-, hut leaves it as the reserved power of the States; tojbe by them exercised. The prohibitions of power by the Constitution to the State- are express prohibitions, as that no State shall enter into any treaty, etc., or emit hills of credit, or pass any bill of attainder, etc. The Constitution does not prohibit Si ites from the en ctment of laws for the general gov- ernment of the people within their respective Limits. ••The law in every State should be just; it should be no re- specter of persons. It is otherwise now, and it has been other- wise for many years in many of the States of the Union. I should remedy that, not by arbitrary assumption of power, but by amending the Constitution of the United States, < -ly prohibiting the State- from any such abuse of power in the fu- ture. Y"u propose to make it a penal offense t"« >r the judges of the States to obey the Constitution and laws of their State-, and for their obedience thereto to punish them by fine and imprison- ment as felons. 1 deny your power to do this. You can i make an official act, done under color of law, and without crim- inal intent, and from a sense of public duty, a crime." Mr. Shellabarger of < mio said : " I do not understand that there i- now any serious doubt anywhere a- to OUT power to admit by law to the rights of American citizenship entire classes or races who were born and continue to reside in our territory or in ter- ritory we acquire. I stated, the other day. some of the cases in which we naturalized races, tribes, and communities in mass, and by Bingle exercises of national sovereignty. This we did by the treaty of April 30, 1800, by which we acquired Louisiana; also in the treaty of ] > l ! t , by which we acquired Florida; also in the treaty of 1848, by which we acquired part of Mexico; also by CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. the resolution of March 1, 1845, annexing Texas, and the act of December 29, same year, admitting Texas into the Union, we made all the people not slaves citizen-; also by the treaty of Sep- tember 27, 1830, we admitted to citizens certain heads of famili< - of Choctaws; also by the treaty of December 29, 1855, we did the same as to the Cherokees; also by the act of March 3, 1813, we admitted to full citizenship the Stockbridgc tribe of Indians." Referring to the first section which his colleague had proposed to amend, he said: "Sell-evidently this is the whole effect of this first section. It secures, not to all citizens, but to all races as races who are citizens, equality of protection in those enumerated civil rights which the States may deem proper to confer upon any races. Now, sir, can this Government do this? . Can it prevent one race of free citizens from being by State laws deprived as a race of all the civil rights for the securement of which his Gov- ernment was created, and which are the only considerations the Government renders to him for the Federal allegiance which he renders"? It does seem to me that that Government which has the exclusive right to confer citizenship, and which is entitled to demand service and allegiance, which is supreme over that due to any State, may — nay, must — protect those citizens in those rights which are fairly conducive and appropriate and necessary to the attainment of his ( protection' as a citizen. And I think those rights to contract, sue, testily, inherit, etc., which this bill says the races shall hold as races in equality, are of that class which are fairly conducive and necessary as means to the constitutional end ; to-wit, the protection of the rights of person and property of a citizen. It has been found impossible to settle or define what are all the indispensable rights of American citizenship. But it is perfectly well settled what are some of these, and without which there is no citizenship, either in this or any other Government. Two of these are the right of petition and the right of protection in such property as it is lawful for that particular citizen to own." The debate was closed by Mr. Wilson, Chairman of the Judi- ciary Committee. He said: "This bill, sir, has met with oppo- sition in both houses on the same ground that, in times gone by, before this land was drenched in blood by the slaveholders' rebell- ion, was urged by those who controlled the destinies of the south- ern portion of the country, and those who adhered to their fortunes in the North, for the purpose of riveting the chains of slavery and THE THIRTY-NINTH COXGRE converting this republic into a great slave nation. The argu- ments which have been urged against this l»ill in both hous are but counterparts of the argi nts used in opposition to the authority the Government sought to exercise in controlling and pr eventing the spread of slavery. "Citizens of the United Stat< 3uch, are entitled to certain rights, and. being: entitled to those rights, it is the dutv of the Government to protect citizens in the perfect enjoyment of them. The citizen is entitled to life, liberty, and the right to property. The gentleman from Ohio tells us, in the protection of th rights, the citizen must depend upon the 'honest purpose of the •ml States/ and that the General Government can not inter- pose its strong right arm to defend the citizen in the enjoymenl of life, liberty, and in possession of property. In other words, if the States of this Union, in their 'honest purpose,' like the honesty of purpose manifested by the Southern States in times past, should deprive the citizen, without due process of law, of life, liberty, and property, the General Government, which can draw the citizen by the strong bond of allegiance to the battle- field, has no power to intervene and set aside a State law, and give the citizen protection under the laws of Congress in the courts of the United States; that at the mercy of the States lie all the rights of the citizens of the United States; that while it was deemed necessary to constitute a great Government to render nre the rights of the people, the framers of the Government turned over to the State- the power to deprive the citizen of those thine- for the security of which the Government was trained. In other words, the little State of Delaware has a hand stronger than the United States; that revolted South Carolina may put under lock and key the great fundamental rights belonging to the citi- zen, and we must he dumb; that our legislative power can not 1,- exercised; that our curt- musl he closed to the appeal of our citizens. That is the doctrine this House of Representatives, rep- resenting a great free people, just emerged from a terrible war for the maintenan< f American liberty, is asked to adopt. "The gentleman from Ohio tells the House that civil rights involve all the rights that citizens have under the Government; that in the term are embraced those rights which belong to the citizen of the United States as such, and those which belong to a citizen of a State as Buoh; and that this hill is not intended CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 24 1 merely to enforce equality of rights, so far as they relate to citi- zens of the United States, but invades the States to enforce equality of rights in respect to those things which properly and rightfully depend on State regulation- and laws. My friend is too - und a lawyer, is too well versed in the Constitution of his counl -v. to indorse that proposition on calm and deliberate consideration. He knows, as every man knows, that this bill refers to those fights which belong to men as citizens of the United States and none other; and when he talks of setting aside the school laws, and jury laws, and franchise laws of the States, by the bill now under consideration, he steps beyond what he must know to be the rule of construction which must apply here, and, as the result of which this bill can only relate to matters within the control of ( Jongress." Comparing Mr. Bingham's proposed amendment with the orig- inal bill, Mr. Wilson said : " What difference in principle is there between saying that the citizen shall be protected by the legisla- tive power of the United States in his rights by civil remedy and declaring that he shall be protected by penal enactments against those who interfere with his rights? There is no difference in the principle involved. If we may adopt the gentleman's mode, we may also select the mode provided in this bill. There is a difference in regard to the expense of protection ; there is also a difference as to the effectiveness of the two modes. Beyond this, nothing. This bill proposes that the humblest citizen shall have full and ample protection at the cost of the Government, whose duty it is to protect him. The amendment of the gentleman recognizes the principle involved, but it says that the citizen de- spoiled of his rights, instead of being properly protected by the Government, must press his own way through the courts and pay the bills attendant thereon. This may do for the rich, but to the poor, who need protection, it is mockery. The highest obligation which the Government owes to the citizen, in return for the alle- giance exacted of him, is to secure him in the protection of his rights. Under the amendment of the gentleman, the citizen can only receive that protection in the form of a few dollars in the way of damages, if he shall be so fortunate as to recover a ver- dict against a solvent wTong-doer. This is called protection. This is what we are asked to do in the way of enforcing the bill of rights. Dollars are weighed against the right of life, liberty, 16 THE Till B T i'-.Y/.Y Til < 'O. ^ '( / R ES v and property. The verdict of a jury i- to cover all wrongs and discharge the obligations of the Govemmeni to its citizens. "Sir, I can aol see the justice of that doctrine. I assert that it i- the duty of the Government of the United States to provide proper protection and to pay the costs attendant on it. We hav< nt with the strong arm of the < rovernment and drawn from their homes, all over this land, in obedience to the bond of alie- nee which tlr Government holds on the citizen, hundreds thousands of men to the battle-field; and yet, while we may ex- ercise this extraordinary power, the gentleman claim- that we can not extend the protecting hand of the Government to these men who have Keen battling for the life of the nation, but ran only id them, at their own cost, to juries for verdicts of a few dol- lars in compensation for the most flagrant wrong to their most sacred rights. Let those support that doctrine who will. I can not." At th.- conclusion of Mr. Wilson's speech, Mr. Eldridge, of Wisconsin, moved to lay the whole subject on the table. This motion was rejected — yea-. 32; nays, 118. The House then rejected Mr. Bingham's proposed amendment, and recommitted the bill to the Committee on the Judiciary. On the 13th of March the bill was reported back from the committee with some amendments, one of which was to strike out in section one the following words: "Without distinction of color, and there shall be no discrimination in civil rights, or immunities among citizens of the Unit - in any State or Territory of the United States on account of race, color, or previous condition of slavery." The words were omitted to satisfy some who feared that it might be held by the courts that the right of suffrage was con- ferred thereby. Another amendment proposed was the addition of a section to the bill, to-w it : I That upon all questions of law arising in any cast' under the provisions of this act, a anal appeal may be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States Other amendments proposed and adopted were chiefly of a verbal character. CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 2. The main question was finally taken, and the bill passed by the following vote: Yeas — Messrs. Alley, Allison, Ames, Anderson, James M. Ashley, Bilker, Baldwin, Banks, Baxter, Beaman, Bidwell, Blaine, Blow, Boutwell, Brom- well, Broomall, Buckland, Bundy, Sidney Clarke, Cobb, Conkling, Cook, Cullom, Darling, Davis, Dawes, Delano, Deining. Dixon, Donnelly, Driggs Dumont, Eliot, Farnsworth, Farquhar, Ferry, Garfield, Grinnell, Aimer i Harding, Hart, Hayes, Higby, Hill, Holmes, Hooper, Asahel W, Hubbard, Chester 1 >. Hubbard, Demas Hubbard, John H. Hubbard, Hulburd, James Humphrey, [ngersoll, Jenckes, Julian, Kelley, Kelso. Ketcham, Kuykendall, Laflin, George V. Lawrence, William Lawrence, Loan, Longyear, Lynch, Marston, Marvin, McClurg, McRuer, Mercur, Miller, Moorhead, Morrill, Morris, Moulton. Myers, Newell, O'Neill, Orth, Paine, Perham, Pike, Plants, Price, Alexander II. Rice, Sawyer, Sohenck, Seofield, Shellabarger, Sloan, Spalding, Star,'. Stevens, Thayer, Francis Thomas, John L. Thomas, Trow- bridge, Upson, Van Aernam, Burt Van Horn, Ward. Warner, Elihu B. Washburne, William B. Washburn, Wclker, Wentwortb, Whaley, Williams, James F. Wilson, Stephen F. Wilson, Windom, and Woodbridge — 111. Nays— Messrs. Ancona, Bergen, Bingham, Boyer, Brooks, Coffroth, Daw- son, Denison, Glosbrenner, Goodyear, Glider, Aaron Harding, Harris, Hogan, Edwin N. Hubbell, Jones, Ken-, Latham, Le Blond, Marshall, Mc- Cullough, Nicholson, Phelps, Radford, Samuel J. Randall, Willam H. Ran- dall, Hitter, Rogers, Ross, Rosseau, Shanklin, Sitgreaves, Smith, Taber, Taylor, Thornton, Trimble, and Winfield— 38. Not Voting — Messrs. Delos R. Ashley, Barker. Benjamin, Brandegee, Chanler, Reader W. Clarke, Culver, Defrees, Eckley, Eggeston, Eldridge, Finck, Griswold, Dale, Henderson, Hotchkiss, James R. Hubbell, James M. Humphrey. Johnson, Kasson, Mclndoe, McKee, Niblack, Noell, Patterson, Pomeroy, Raymond, John H. Rice, Rollins, Stilwell, Strouse, Robert T. Nan Horn. Henry D. Washburn, and Wright — 34, It is an illustration of the opinion which the minority enter- tained of the bill to the last, that after it had finally passed, and the previous question had been moved on the adoption of the title, Mr. Le Blond moved to amend the title of the bill by making it read, "A bill to abrogate the rights and break down the judicial system of the States." On the loth of March the amendments made by the House came before the Senate for adoption in that body. While these were under consideration by the Senate, Mr. Davis, of Kentucky, made two motions to amend, which were rejected. He then moved to lay the bill on the table, and was proceeding to make a speech, when he was informed that his motion was not debat- able. He then withdrew his motion to lay on the table, and THE THIRTY-JflJfTR C0KGR1 moved to postpone the bill until the first Mond ember following. Finding that the last amendment proposed by the House of Representatives was before the Senate, and that his motion could nol be entertained, he proceeded to m speech on the question before the Sen; He asserted that "Congn has no authority or jurisdiction whatever" over the subject of legislation which the bill contains. He closed his remarks with the following words: "I therefore, on the grounds that I ha^ stated, oppose this bill. I know that they weigh nothing with the dominant power here. What care I for that? What care I for the manner in which my suggestions may be received by tin majority? Nothing — less than nothing, if possible. I am per- forming my duty according to my sense of that duty; and in despite of all opposition, of frowns or scoffs, or of any other op- position, come in what form it may, 1 will stand up to the lasl hour of my service in this chamber, and will, endeavor, is best I can, to perform my duty whatever may betide me." The amendment- of the House were agreed to, and the Civil Rights Bill wanted only Executive approval to become a law of the land. CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. CHAPTER XI. THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL AND THE VETO. Doubts as to the President's Decision — Suspense ended — The Veto Mes- sage — Mr. Trumbull's Answer — Mr. Reyerdy Johnson defends the Message— Rejoinder — Remarks of Mr. V alios — Mr. Cowan appeals to the Country — Mr. Stewart shows how States may make the J. aw a Nullity — Mr. Wade — Mr. McDougall on Persian Mythology — Mr. J. H. Lane defends the President — Mr. Wade — The Presidents Col- lar — Mr. Brown — Mr. Doolittle — Mr. Garrett Davis — Mr. Sauls- bury — Yeas and Nays in the Senate — Vote in the House — The Civil Rights Bill becomes a Law. THE Civil Rights Bill having finally passed through Congress, on the loth of March, by the concurrence of the Senate in the amendments of the House, was submitted to the Presi- dent for his approval. Much anxiety was felt throughout the country to know what would be the fate of the bill at the hands of the Executive. Some thought it incredible that a President of the United States would veto so plain a declaration of rights, es- sential to the very existence of a large class of inhabitants. Others were confident that Mr. Johnson's approval would not be given to a bill interfering, as they thought, so flagrantly witli the rights of the States under the Constitution. All doubts were dispelled, on the 27th of March, by the ap- pearance of the President's Secretary on the floor of the Senate, who said, in formal phrase: " Mr. President, I am directed by the President of the United States to return to the Senate, in which house it originated, the bill entitled ' An act to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and to furnish the means of their vindication/ with his objections thereto in writing." The Secretary of the Senate then read the message, which was heard with profound attention by the Senators, and a large assem- bly which thronged the galleries, drawn thither in anticipation of the President's veto message. 240 THE Tlllirr)--.YI.YTII COJfQBES ■ ■/■ . United & I regret that the bill which hi - - d both hous - Congress, < Qti ■ \n act to protect all persona in the United State- in their civil ri - nd furnish the means for their vindication,' contains pi - which I can approve, consistently with my sense of dut) to the whole people and my obligations to the Constitution of the United ~ • 1 am therefon strained to return it to the Senate, the house in which i I, with mv objections to its becoming a law. Bj the first section of the bill, all persons born in the Unit sd States, and subject to any foreign power, excluding Lndians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of the United States. This provision comprehends the Chi- of the Pacific State-. Indians subject to taxation, the people eal Gypsies, as well as tl mire race designated a- blacks, peopl or, . mulattoes, and persons of African blood. Every individual of th< races, born in the 1 nited States, is by the bill made a citizen of the United - tes i- d< es not purport to declare or confer any other right of citizen- ship than Federal citizenship. It does not purport to give these classes of persons anj as citizens of Si tcept that which may result from their status as citizens of the United State-. The power to confer the ri of State citizenship is just as exclusively with the Beveral States as the r to confer the right of Federal citizenship is with Congi "The right of Federal citizenship thus to be conferred on the severa 5 efore mentioned is now, for the first time, proposed to be <>iven hv law. If. as is claimed by many, all persons who are native-born, already are. hv virtue of the Constitution, citizens of the United States, I passage of the pending bill can not be necessary to make them such. If, on the other hand, such persons are not citizens, as may he assumed from the proposed legislation to make them such, the grave question presents it- Belf, whether, when eleven of the thirty-six Mate- are unrepresented in Con- gress, at this time it is sound policy to make our entire colored population ami till other excepted classes citizens of the United Stat - i i'ur mill' of them have just emerged from slavery into freedom Can it be reasonably supposed that they possess the requisite qualifications to entitle them to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United - Have the people of the several States expressed such a conviction? I; may also ,e,l whether it i- necessarj that the) should he declared citizens in order that they ma\ he secured in the enjoyment of civil rights? Those rights proposed to aferred by the hill are, bj Federal as well a- h. - law-. Becured to all domiciled alien- and foreigners even before the comple- tion of the proi naturalization, ami it may safely he assumed that the same enactments are sufficient to give like protection and benel for whom this hill provides special legislation. Besides, the policy of I Government, from it- origin to the present time, seems to have been that persons who are stranj i rs to and unfamiliar with our institution- and I i law- .should pass through a certain probation, at the end ><\' which, bed ,-. thev must -i\'' evidem f their fitness to re- ceive and to exercise the rights ol - a- contemplated i \ the Constitu- tion of the I nii.d - CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. "The bill, In effect, proposes a discrimination against large numbers of intelligent, worthy, and patriotic foreigners, and in favor of the negro, to whom, after long years of bondage, the avenues to freedom and intelligenc i have new been suddenly opened. He must, of necessity, from his previous unfortunate condition of servitude, be less informed as to the nature and character of our institutions than he who. coming from abroad, has to some extent at least, familiarized himself with the principles of a Government tn which he voluntarily intrusts 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' Yet it is now proposed by a single legislative enactment to confer the rights of citizens upon all persons of African descent, born within the extended limits of the I nited States, while persons of foreign birth, who make our land their home, must undergo a probation of five years, and can only then become citizens upon proof that they are of 'good moral character, attached to the principles of the < institution of the United States, and well dispos< d to the good order and happiness of the same.' "The first seetimi of the bill also contains an enumeration of the rights tu be enjoyed by these classes, so made citizens, 'in every State and Terri- tory in the United State-' These rights are. 'To make and enforce con- tracts, to sue. be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property,' and to have 'full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens.' So. too, they are made subject to the same punishment, pains, and penalties in common with white citizens, and to none others. Thus a perfect equality of the white and black races is at- tempted to be fixed by Federal law, in every State of the Union, over the vast field of State jurisdiction covered by these enumerated rights. In no one of these can any State ever exercise any power of discrimination be- tween the different races "In the exercise of State policy over matters exclusively affecting the peo pie of each State, it has frequently been thought expedient to discriminate between the two races. By the statutes of some of the States, Northern as well as Southern, it is enacted, for instance, that no white person shall in- termarry with a negro or mulatto. Chancellor Kent says, speaking of the blacks, that 'marriages between them and whites are forbidden in some of the States where slavery dues not exist, and they are prohibited in all the slaveholding States, and when not absolutely contrary to law, they are re- volting, and regarded as an offense against public decorum.' "1 do not say this !,il! repeals State laws on the subject of marriage be- tween the two races, for a> the whites are forbidden to intermarry with the Macks, the blacks can only make such contracts - as the wli-ites themselves are allowed to make, ami therefore can not. under this hill, enter into the marriage contract with the whites. I cite this discrimination, however, as an instance of the State policy as to discrimination, and to inquire whether, if Congress can abrogate all State laws of discrimination between the two race-- in the matter of real estate, of suits, and of contracts generally, Con- gress may not also repeal the State laws as t<> the contract of marriage be- tween the two races'.' Hitherto every subject embraced in the enumeration of rights contained in this bill has ttsi i red s i sclusivelj belonging . .8 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. to the States. They all relate to the internal policy and economy of the re- ti .. states They are matters which in each State concern the domestic condition of its people, varying in each according to it- own i uliar circum- stances, and the Bafety and well-being of its own citizens I do not mean to say that upon all these subjects there are not Federal restrai for instance, in the State power of legisla r contracts, there is a Federal limitation that no State -hall pass a law impairing the obligations of con- tracts; and as to crimes, that no State shall pass an law; and < as to money, that no State .-hall make any thing but gold and silver a legal tender But when- can we find a Federal prohibition against the power of any State to discriminate, as do most of them, between aliens and citizens, between artificial persons called corporations and natural persons, in the right to hold real estate "If it be granted that Congress can repeal all State laws discriminating betwem white- and blacks, in the subj • vered by this bill, why. it may be asked, may not Congress repeal in the same way all State law- discrim- inating between the tun races on the subject of suffrage ami office? li' Congress can 4. ■dare by law who shall hold lands, who shall testify, who shall ha\e capacity to make a contract in a State, then Congress can by law also declare who, without regard to color or race, -hall have the right to sit a- a juror or as a judge, to hold any office, and, finally, to vote, -in every State and Territory of the United States.' A- respects the Territories, they come within the power of Congress, for, a- to them, the law-making power i- the Federal power; hut as to the State-, n. , similar provisions exi>t. \ lU _ i,, Con« jiower 'to make rule- ami regulations' tor them. "The object of the see, .ml section of the hill i> to afford discriminating protection to colored persons in the full enjoyment of all the rights secured to them by the preceding section. It declares that any person who, under or oi any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, shall subject, or e subjected, any inhabitant of an; - or Territory to the de- privation of any right secured or protected by this act, or to different pun- ishment, pains, or penalties on account of such person having at one time been hell in a condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except a- a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, or by reason of hi- color or race, than is prescribed for the punishment of w hi on- shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction, shall 1- punished by line not ex idin« si. , or by imprisonment not ..,-. or both, in the discretion ..f the court' This section taa to I,.- designed to applj to -..me existing or future law of a State or Territory .which may conflict with the provisions of the hill now under con- sideration lr provides for counteracting such forbidden legislation by im- posing line an, I imprisonment upon the h - who may pass such law-, or up,. u thi officers or agents who shall put, or attempt to put, them into execution It mean- an official offense, not a common .-rime committed against law upon the persons or property of the black race. Such an act may deprive the black man of hi- property, but not "\' the right to hold property. It mean- a deprivation o ighl itself, either by tie Judiciary or the S ''«• I' fore assumed that, CIVIL EIGHTS BILL. 240 under this section, members of State Legislatures who should vote for laws conflicting with the provisions of the bill; that judges of the State courts who should render judgments in antagonism with its terms; and that mar- shals and sheriffs, who should, as ministerial officers, execute processes, sanctioned by State laws and issued by State judges, in execution of their judgments, could be brought before oilier tribunals, and there subjected to fine and imprisonment for the performance of the duties which such State laws might impose. "The legislation thus proposed invades the judicial power of the State. It says to every State court or judge, If you decide that this act is uncon- stitutional; if you refuse, under the prohibition of a State law. to allow a negro to testify; if you hold that over such a subject-matter the State law- is paramount, and 'under color' of a State law refuse the exercise of the right to the negro, your error of judgment, however conscientious, shall sub- ject vou to line and imprisonment. 1 do not apprehend that the conflicting legislation which the bill seems to contemplate is so likely to occur as to render it necessary at this time to adopt a measure of such doubtful consti- tutionality. "In the next place, this provision of the bill seems to be unnecessary, as adequate judicial remedies could be adopted to secure the desired end without invading the immunities of legislators, always important to he pre- served in the interest of public liberty; without assailing the independence of the judiciary, always essential to the preservation of individual rights; and without impairing the efficiency of ministerial officers, always necessary for the maintenance of public peace and order. The remedy proposed by this section seems to lie, in this respect, not only anomalous, but unconsti- tutional; for the Constitution guarantees nothing with certainty, if it does not insure to the several States the right of making and executing laws in regard to all matters arising within their jurisdiction, subject only to the restriction that, in cases of conflict with the Constitution and constitutional laws of the United States, the latter should be held to be the supreme law of the land. "The third section gives the district courts of the United States exclusive 'cognizance of all crimes and offenses committed against the provisions of this act.' and concurrent jurisdiction with the circuit courts of the United States of all civil and criminal cases 'affecting persons who are denied or can not enforce in the courts or judicial tribunals of the State or locality where they may he any of the rights secured to them by the first section.' The construction which 1 have given to the second section is strengthened by this third section, lor it makes clear what kind of denial or deprivation of the rights secured by the first section was in contemplation. It is a de- nial or deprivation of such rights 'in the courts or judicial tribunals of the State.' It stands, therefore, clear of doubt, that the offense and the penal- ties provided in the second section are intended for the State judge, who, in the 'dear exercise of his function as a judge, not acting ministerially, hut judicially, shall decide contrary to this Federal law. In other word-, when a State judge, acting upon a question involving a conflict between a State law and a Federal law, and bound, according to his own judgment and re- • THE rui irr)'-.vi.yrn CONGREh risibility, to give an impartial decision between the two, cornea to the conclusion that the State law i- valid and the Federal law is invalid, he must not follow the dictates of hi- own judgment, at the peril of fine and imprisonment The legislative department of the Government of the United States thus takes from the judicial department of the States the sacred and luty of judicial decision, and converts the State judge into a mere ministerial officer, bound t<> dei cording to the will of Congr •'It is clear that, in States which deny to persons whose rights ar cured l>y the first section of the bill any one of those rights, all criminal and civil cases affecting them will, by the provisions of the third section, come under the exclusive cognizance of the Federal tribunals. It foil that if, in any State which denies to a colored person any one of all t ; rights, that person should commit a crime against the laws of the State- murder, areon, rape, or any other crime — all protection and punishment through the courts of the State are taken away, and he ran only be tried and punished in the Federal courts How is the criminal to be tried'.' It' the offense is provided for ami punished by Federal law, that law, and the State law . is to govern. •'I' is only when the offense does not happen to be within the purview eral law that the Federal courts are to try and punish him under any other law; then resorl is to be had to 'the common law, as modified and changed' by State legislation, 'so far as the same is nut incons with tie I Lution and laws of the United States.' So that over this domain of criminal jurisprudence, provided by each State for the protection of its own citizens, and for the punishment of all persons who violate criminal laws, Federal law, wherever it can be made to apply, disphu - State law. '•'The question here naturally arises, from what soun ijress derives the power tn transfer to Federal tribunals certain classes of cases embra in this section. The Constitution expressly declares that the judicial power of the United States 'shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United State-, and treaties made, or which shall he made, under their authority; to all cases affecting embassadors, other public ministers, and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; in controversies t" which the United States shall he a par' to controversies between two or more State-, between a State ami citizens nl' another State, between citizens of different States, between citizens of tic ate claiming land under grants of different State-, and between a State. «,r the citizens thereof, and foreign State-, citizens, or subjec! ■ Here the judicial power of the United State- i- expressly set forth and defined; ami the acl of September 24, 1789, establishing the judicial courts of the I States, in conferring upon the Federal courts jurisdiction over cases originating in State tribunals, is careful to confine them to the classes cnumerate.l in the above recited clause of the C nstitution, This section of the hill undoubtedly comprehends case, and authorizes the exercise of powers that are not, L\ the Constitution, within the jurisdiction of the com of the United State- To transfer them to those courts would he an exer- of authority well calci distrust and alarm on the part of CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. »-. all the States; for the bill applies alike to all of them— as well to those that have as to those thai have not been engaged in rebellion. "It may be assumed that this authority is incident to the power granted to Congress by the Constitution, as recently amended, to enforce, by appro- priate legislation, the article declaring that '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 sub- ject to their jurisdiction.' It can not, however, he justly claimed that, with a view to the enforcement of this article of the Constitution, there is, at present, any necessity for the exercise of all the powers which this bill i'o nfers. Slavery has been abolished, and. at present, nowhere exists within the jurisdiction of the United Stares: nor has there been, nor is it likely there will be, any attempt to revive it. by the people of the States. If. however, any such attempt shall be made, it will then become the duty of the Gen- eral Government to exercise any and all incidental powers necessary and proper to maintain inviolate this great constitutional law of freed.ua. • The fourth section of the bill provides that officers and agents of the Freedmen's Bureau shall be empowered to make arrests, and also that other officers may be specially commissioned for that purpose by the President of the United States. It also authorizes circuit courts of the United States and the superior courts of the Territories to appoint, without limitation, commis- sioners, who are to be charged with the performance of quasi judicial duties. The fifth section empowers the commissioners so to be selected by the courts to appoint, in writing, under their hands, one or more suitable persons, from time to time, to execute warrants and other processes described by the bill. These numerous official agents are made to constitute a sort of police, in addition to the military, and are authorized to summon a posse comitatus and even to call to their aid such portion of the land and naval forces of the United States, or of the militia, 'as may be necessary to the perform- ance of the duty with which they are charged.' ■■This extraordinary power is to be conferred upon agents irresponsible to the Government and to the people, to whose number the discretion of the commissioners is the only limit, and in whose hands such authority might he made a terrible engine of wrong, oppression, and fraud. The general Btatutes regulating the land and naval forces of the United States, the mi- litia, and the execution of the laws, are believed to he adequate for every emergency which can occur in time of peace. If it should prove otherwise, Congress can, at any time, amend those; laws in such manner as. while sub- serving the public welfare, not to jeopard the rights, interests, and liberties of the people. ■•The seventh section provides that a fee of ten dollars shall he paid to each commissioner in every case brought before him. and a fee of five dol- lars to his deputy, or deputies, 'for each person he or they may arrest and take before any such commissioner,' 'with such other fees as may be deemed reasonable by such commissioner,' 'in general for performing such other du- ties as may be required in the premise.-.' All these U-<^ are to be paid out of the Treasury of the United States,' whether there is a conviction or not; THE Till i; I ) -.VI. VII I COJVGBESS. but, in ease of conviction, they are to be recoverable from the defendant It seems tn me that, under the influence of such temptations, bad men might convert any law, however beneficent, into an instrument of persecution and fraud. ■■ U\ the eighth section of the bill, the United States courts, which sit only in one place fur white citizens, must mil vith the marshal and district attorney (and necessarily with the clerk, although he i- not mentioned), to any part of the district, upon the order of the President, and then- hold a court ' for the purpose of the more speedy arrest and trial of persons charged with a violation of this act;' and there the judge and the officers of the court must remain, upon the order of the President, 'for the time therein designat "The ninth section authorizes the President, or such person as he may empower for that purpose, to employ such part of the land and naval ; of the United States, or of the militia, as shall be necessary to prevent the violation and enforce the due execution of this act 1 This Ian seems n. imply a permanent military force, that is to be always at hand, and whose only business is to be the enforcement of this measure over the vast ■ ii w here it is intended to operate, "I do not propose to consider the policy of this bill. To me the details of the 'ill seem fraught with evil. The white race and the black ni> the South have hitherto lived together under the relation of master and slave — capital owning labor. Now, suddenly, that relation is changed, and, as to the ownership, capital and labor are divorced. They Btand, now. each master of itself In this new relation, one being necessary to the other, there will be a new adjustment, which both are deeply interested in making harmonious Each has equal power in settling the terms, and, if left to the laws that regulate capital ami labor, it is confidently believed that they will satisfactorily work out the problem. Capital, it i< true, has more intelli- gence; hut Labor is never so ignorant as nut to understand its own interest-, not to know its own value, ami not t" see that capital must pay that value This hill frustrates this adjustment It intervenes between capital ami labor, ami attempts to settle questions of political economy through the agencj of numerous officials, whose interest it will lie to foment discord between the two races; lor. as the breach widens, their employment will continue, ami when it i- closed, their occupation will terminate. '■In all our history, in all our experience a- a people living under Fed- eral ami State law, no such system as that contemplated by the details of this hill has ever before been proposed or adopted. They establish, for the security of the colored race, safeguards which go infinitely beyond am that the General Government ha.- ever provided for the white race. In fact, the distinction of race ami color is, by the hill, made t" operate in favor of the colore. 1 and against the white race Thej interfere with the municipal leg- islation of the State-, with the relations existing exclusively between a State ami iis citizens, or between inhabitants of the same State —an absorption ami assumption of power by the Gem ral Government which, if ao |uiesced in. must sap ami destroy our federative system of limited powers, ami break down the barriers which preserve the rights of the State-. It i- am CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. %53 step, or rather stride, to centralization and the concentration of all legisla- tive power in the National Government, The tendency of the bill must be to resuscitate the spirit of rebellion, and to arrest the progress of those influ- ences which are more closely drawing around the States the bonds of union and peace. "My lamented predecessor, in his proclamation of the 1st of January, 1863, ordered and declared that all persons held as slaves within certain States and parts of States therein designated, were and thenceforward should be free; and, further, that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, would recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons. This guarantee has been rendered especially obligatory and sacred by the amendment of the Constitution abol- ishing slavery throughout the United States. I, therefore, fully recognize the obligation to protect and defend that class of our people whenever and wherever it shall become necessary, and to the full extent compatible with the Constitution of the United States. "Entertaining these sentiments, it only remains for me to say that I will cheerfully cooperate with Congress in any measure that may be necessary for the protection of the civil rights of the freedmen, as well as those of all other classes of persons throughout the United States, by judicial pro- cess under equal and impartial laws, in conformity with the provisions of the Federal Constitution. "I now return the bill to the Senate, and regret that, in considering the bills and joint resolutions — forty-two in number — which have been thus far submitted for my approval, I am compelled to withhold my assent from a second measure that has received the sanction of both houses of Congress. "ANDREW JOHNSON. "Washington, D. C, March 27, 1860." The death and funeral obsequies of Senator Foot prevented the Senate from proceeding to the consideration of the Presi- dent's veto message for more than a week after it was read. On the 4th of April the Civil Rights Bill came up to be recon- sidered, the question being, " Shall the bill pass, the objections of the President notwithstanding." It devolved upon Mr. Trumbull, the author of the bill, to answer the objections of the President. In answer to the Presi- dent's position that the bill conferred only Federal citizenship, and did not give any status as citizens of States, Mr. Trumbull said: ''Is it true that when a person becomes a citizen of the United States he is not also a citizen of every State where he may happen to be? On this point I will refer to a decision pronounced by the Supreme Court of the United States, de- livered by Chief-Justice Marshall, the most eminent jurist who ever sat upon an American bench. In the case of Gassies vs. 2S4 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. Ballon, reported in ill can pass Congress till the Smto are represented here. Sir, whose fault is it that eleven States are not represented? By what fault of their- is it that twenty-five loyal States which have stood by this Union and by the Constitution arc to be deprived of their righl to legislate? [f the reason assigned is a g 1 one now. it ha- been a good one all the time for the last five years. It' the fact that -nine States have rebelled against the Government is to take from the Gov- ernment the right to legislate, then the criminal is to take ad- vantage of his crime; the innocent are to be punished for the Uiiiltv. " Bui the President tells us that 'the bill, in effect, proposes ;i discrimination against large numbers of intelligent, worthy, and patriotic foreigners, and in favor of the negro. 5 Is that true? What is the bill? It declare- that there shall be no distinction in civil rights between any other race or color and the white race. CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 255 It declares that there shall be no different punishment inflicted on a colored man in consequence of his color than thai which is inflicted on a white man for the same offense. Is that a dis- crimination in favor of the negro and against the foreigner — a bill the «»nlv effect of which is to preserve equality of rights? "But perhaps it may be replied to this that the bill proposes to make a citizen of every person born in the United States, and, therefore, it discriminates in that respect against the foreigner. Not so; foreigners arc all upon the same footings whether black or white. The white child who is born in the United States a citizen is not to be presumed at its birth to be the equal in- tellectually with the worthy, intelligent, and patriotic foreigner who emigrates to this country. And, as is suggested by a Senator behind me, even the infant child of a foreigner born in this land is a citizen of the United States long before his father. Is this, therefore, a discrimination against foreigners '? " The President also has an objection to the making citizens of Chinese and Gypsies. I am told that but few Chinese are born in this country, and where the Gypsies are born, I never knew. [Laughter.] Like Topsy, it is questionable, whether they were born at all, but 'just come.' [Laughter.] " But, sir, perhaps the best answer to this objection that the bill proposes to make citizens of Chinese and Gypsies, and this refer- ence to the foreigners, is to be found in a speech delivered in this body by a Senator occupying, I think, the seat now occupied across the chamber by my friend from Oregon, [Mr. AVilliams,] less than six years ago, in reply to a message sent to this body by Mr. Buchanan, the then President of the United States, return- ing, with his objections, what was known as the Homestead Bill. On that occasion the Senator to whom I allude said : " 'But this idea about "poor foreigners," somehow or other, bewilders and haunts the imagination of a great many. * * •■ • T am constrained to say that I look upon this objection to the bill as a mere quibble on the part of the President, and as being hard-pressed for some excuse in withholding his approval of the measure: and his allusion to foreigners in this connection looks to me more like the ad captandum of the mere politician or demagogue, than a grave and sound reason to he offered by the President of the United States in a veto message upon so im- portant a measure as the Homstead Bill.' "That was the language of Senator Andrew Johnson, now QoG THE Tl1UrrY-.XI.XTll QOKGRESS. President of the United States. [Laughter.] That is probably the best answer to this ol i, though I should hardly have ventured to use such harsh language in reference to the President as to accuse hi f quibbling and of demagoguery, and of play- ing the mere politician in sending a veto ok to the < longress of the United States." The President had urged an objection that if Congress could confer civil rights upon persons without regard to color or race, it might also confer upon them political rights, and among them thai of suffrage. In reply to this, Mr. Trumbull referred to the policy of the President himself in undertaking to "reorganize State governments in the disloyal States." He "claimed and exercised the power to protect colored persons in their civil rights," and yet, when "urged to allow loyal blacks to vote," he held that "he had no power; it was unconstitutional." "But, sir," continued Mr. Trumbull, "the granting of civil rights does not and never did, in this country, carry with it rights, or, more properly speaking, political privileges. A man may be a citizen in this country without a right to vote or without a ri ; children are citizen.- ; hut they do not exercise the elective franchise by virtue of their citizenship. Foreigners, a- is stated by the President in this message, before they arc naturalized are protected in the rights enumerated in this bill, but because they possess those rights in most, if not all, the State.-, that carries with it no right to vote " But, Bir, what rights do citizens of the United States have? To be a citizen of the United States carries with it some rights, and what arc they? They are those inherent, fundamental rights which belong to free citizen- or free men in all countries, such as the rights enumerated in this bill, and they belong to them in all the Stales of the \ 'nion. The right of American citizenship means CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 257 something. It does not mean, in the case of a foreigner, that when lie is naturalized he is to be left entirely to the mercy of State legislation. He has a right, when duly naturalized, to go into any State of the Union, and to reside there, and the United States Government will protect him in that right. It will protect a citizen of the United States, not only in one of the States of tin Union, but it will protect him in foreign lands. " Every person residing in the United States is entitled to the protection of that law by the Federal Government, because the Federal Government has jurisdiction of such questions. Ameri- can citizenship would be little worth if it did not carry protection with it. " How is it that every person born in these United States owes allegiance to the Government? Every thing that he is or has, his property and his life, may be taken by the Government of the United States in its defense, or to maintain the honor of the nation. And can it be that our ancestors struggled through a long war and set up this Government, and that the people of our day have strug- gled through another war, with all its sacrifices and all its desola- tion, to maintain it, and at last that we have got a Government which is all-powerful to command the obedience of the citizen, but has no power to afford him protection? Is that all that tins boasted American citizenship amounts to ? Go tell it, sir, to the father whose son was starved at Andersonville ; or the widow whose husband was slain at Mission Ridge; or the little boy who leads his sightless father through the streets of your city, made blind by the winds and the sand of the Southern coast ; or the thousand other mangled heroes to be seen on every side, that this Government, in defense of which the son and the husband fell, the father lost his eyes, and the others were crippled, had the right to call these persons to its defense, but has no right to protect the survivors or their friends in any right whatever in any of the States. Sir, it can not be. Such is not the meaning of our Con- stitution. Such is not the meaning of American citizenship. This Government, which would go to war to protect its meanest — I will not say citizen — inhabitant, if you please, in any foreign land, wdiose rights were unjustly encroached upon, has certainly some power to protect its own citizens in their own country. Allegiance and protection are reciprocal rights." To the President's objection to the second section of the bill, 17 THE TIlJniY-.YJ.YTIl COXGRESS. that it discriminated in favor of colored persons, Mr. Trumbull replied: "II . in effect, that no one shall subject a colored person to a different punishment than that inflicted on a white person for the same offense. Does thai discriminate in favor of the colored person? Why. sir, the very object and effect of the tiou is to prevent discrimination, and language, it seems to me, could not more plainly express that object and effect. It may be said that it is for the benefit of the black man. because he is qow, in some instances, discriminated against by State laws; but that i- the case with all remedial statutes. They are for the relief of the persons who need the relief, not for the relief of those who have the right already ; and when those needing the relief obtain it, they stand upon the precise footing of those who do not need the bem of the law." The President had further objected to this section, that " it pro- vides for counteracting such forbidden legislation by imposing fine and imprisonment upon the legislators who may pass such con- flicting laws." •• Let us see," said Mr. Trumbull, " it' that is the language or tlif proper construction of the section. I will read again the first line- <>t' it. It declares ' that any person who, under color of any law. ordinance, regulation, or custom, -hall subject, or c be subjected, etc., :;: * * shall be punished, 5 •• Who is to be punished? Is the law to be punished? Are the men who make the law to be punished? I.- that the lan- guage of the bill'.' Not at all. If any person, ' under color of any law,' .-hall subject another to the deprivation of a right to which he is entitled, he is to be punished. Who? The person who, under the color of the law, doe- the act, not thf men who made the law. In some communities in the South a custom pre- vails by which different punishment i- inflicted upon the blacks from that meted out to white- tin- the same offense. Does this section propose to punish the community where the custom pre- vails? or is it to punish the person who, under color of the custom, deprives the party of his right? It is a manifest per- version of the meaning of the section to assert any thing elf ■• But it i< said that under this provision indue- of the courts and ministerial officers who are engaged in execution of any such BtatuteS may be punished, and that is made an objection to this bill. 1 admit that a ministerial officer or a judge, it' he act- cor- CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. ruptly or viciously in the execution or under color of an ill act, may be and ought to be punished; but if he acted innocently, the judge would not be punished. Sir, what is a erime? It is a violation of some public law, to constitute which there must be an act, and a vicious will in doing the act; or, according to the definition in some of the law-books, to constitute a crime there must be a violation of a publie law, in the commission of which there must be a union or joint operation of act and intent, or criminal negligence; and a judge who acted innocently, and not viciously or oppressively, would never be convicted under this act. But, sir, if he acted knowingly, viciously, or oppressively, in dis- regard of a law of the United States, I repeat, he ought to be punished, and it is no anomaly to prescribe a punishment in such a case. Very soon after the organization of this Government, in the first years of its existence, the Congress of the United States provided for punishing officers who, under color of State law, violated the laws of the United States." Mr. Trumbull then read from an act of Congress passed in 1790, providing for the punishment of certain offenses against foreign ministers, and said : " By this provision all officers exe- cuting any process in violation of the laws of the United States are to be subject to a much longer imprisonment than is provided by this bill. " But, sir, there is another answer, in my judgment, more con- clusive, to all these objections to this second section, which is the vital part of the bill. Without it, it would scarcely be worth the paper on which the bill is written. A law without a penalty, without a sanction, is of little value to any body. What good does it do for .the Legislature to say, 'Do this, and forbear to do that,' if no consequence is to follow the act of disobedience? This is the vitality of the bill. What is the objection that is made to it, and which seems even to hav staggered some friends of the measure? It is because it reads in the firsl section that any person who, 'under color of law,' shall commit these offenses, shall be subject to the penalties of the law. Suppose those word had been left out, and the bill read, ' any person who shall subject any inhabitant of a State to different punishment by reason of dis- color shall be punished/ would there have been any objection t imprisonment in the penitentiary ami to heavy tine Would the tact that the persons _ iged in the conspiracy were judges or governors or minister- ial officers, acting under color of any statute or custom, screen thrm from punishment? Surely not. "The words 'under color of" law' were inserted as words of limitation, and m>t for the purpose of punishing persons who would not have been subject to punishment under the act if they had been omitted. Lt' an offense i- committed against a colored person simply because he is colored, in a State where the law affords him the same protection as it' Ik- were white, this act neither has nor was intended to have any thing to do with his -. because he has adequate remedies in the State courts; but it' he is discriminated against, under color of State laws, because he is colored, then it becomes necessary to interfere for hi- pro- tection. '•The assumption that State judges and other officials are not to he held responsible for violations of United State- law- when done under color of State statutes or customs is akin to the maxim of the English law that the king- can do no wrong. It places officials above the law; it is the very doctrine out of which the rebellion was hatched. •• 1 Airy thing that was done by that wicked effort to overturn our Government was done under color of law. The rebels in- sisted that they had a right to -,-,cde; they passed ordinances of -ion, tiny set up State governments, and all that they did was under color of law. And if parties committing these high crimes are to go i'rr>- because they acted under color of law, wh\ i- not Jeff. l>avi- ami every other rebel chief discharged at once? Why did this country put forth all its resources of men and money to put down the rebellion against the authority of the Government except it had a right to do so, even as against thos< who were acting under color of law? Lee, with his rebel horde.-, thundering upon the outskirts of this very city, was acting un- der color of law ; every judge who has held a court in the South- ern State- for the la-t four year-, and ha- tried and convicted of treason men guilty of no other offense than loyalty to the Union, acted under color of law. CIVIL EIGHTS BILL. 201 "Sir, if we had authority by the use of the army and the war power to put down rebels acting under color of law, I put the question to every lawyer, if we had not authority to do that through the courts and the judicial tribunals if it had been prac- ticable? Suppose it had been practicable, through the marshals, to arrest the Legislature which convened at Montgomery, and undertook to take the State of Alabama out of the Union and set up a government in hostility thereto, ought it not to have been done'.' Was not that a conspiracy against this Government'/ When the Legislature assembled at Montgomery in l Messs replying with what patience I could command to its various ob- tiona to the bill. Would that 1 could stop here, that there was no occasion to go further; but justice to myself, justice to the te who.-c representative I am, justice to the people of the whole mtry, in legislation for whose behalf 1 am called to participate, justice to the Constitution I am -worn to support, justice to the rights o!' Ajnerican citizenship it secures, and to human liberty, now imperiled, require me to go further. Gladly would 1 re- frain speaking of the spirit of this message, of the dangerous d (ctrines it promulgates, of the inconsistencies and contradictio of its author, of his encroachments upon the constitutional rights of Congress, of hi- assumption of unwarranted powers, which, it i persevered in and not checked by the ) pie, must eventually lea 1 to a subversion of the Government and the destruction of liberty. "Congress, in the passage of the bill under consideration, sought no controversy with the President. So far from it, the bill was proposed with a view to carry out what were supposed to be the views of the President, and was submitted to him : its in- troduction in the Senate. 1 am not about to relate private di larations of the President, but it is right that the American p pie should know that the controvers) which en him and Congress in reference to this measure is of his own seeking. Soon after Congress met, it became apparent that there was a difference of opinion between the President and - einbera ( , ,■ j g :. . ,rd to the coudition of the rcbelliou md rhts to be secured to fre "The President, in his annual message, had d ;.'■ d the consti- tutional power of the General Government to extend the elective Qchise to negroes, bul he was equally decided in ion civil mains hill. 263 of the right of every man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This was his language : "'But while I have no doubt that now. after the close of the war. it is not competent for the General Government to extend the elective franchise in the several States, it is equally clear that good faith requires the security of tlu- freedmen in their liberty and their property.' "There were some members of Congress who expressed the opinion that in the reorganization of the rebellious States the right of suffrage should be extended to the colored man, though this wa< not the prevailing sentiment of Congress. All were anxious for a reorganization of the rebellious States, and their admission to full participation in the Federal Government as soon as these relations could be restored with safety to all concerned. Feeling the importance of harmonious action between the differ- ent departments of the Government, and an anxious desire to sustain the President, for whom I had always entertained the highest respect, I had frequent interviews with him during the early part of the session. Without mentioning any thing said by him, I may with propriety state that, acting from the considera- tions I have stated, and believing that the passage of a law by Congress, securing equality in civil rights to freedmen and all other inhabitants of the United States, when denied by State authorities, would do much to relieve anxiety in the North, to induce the Southern States to secure these rights by their own action, and thereby remove many of the obstacles to an early re- construction, I prepared the bill substantially as it is now re- turned with the President's objections. After the bill was intro- duced and printed, a copy was furnished him, and at a subsequent period, when it was reported that he was hesitating about sign- ing the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, he was informed of the condition of the Civil Rights Bill then pending in the House, and a hop- expressed that if he had objections to any of its provisions would make them known to it- friends, that they might be rem- edied, if not destructive of the measure; that there was believed to be no disposition on the part of Congress, and certainly none on my part, to have bills presented to him which he could not approve. He never indicated to me, nor. so tar as I know, any of it- friends, the least objection to any of the provisions of the bill till after its passage. And how could he, consistently j/;.; THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. with himself? The bill was framed, as was supposed, in entire harmony with his views, and certainly in harmony with what he was then and has since been doing in protecting freedmen in their civil rights all through the rebellious States. It was strictly lim- ited to the protection of the civil rights belonging to every free- man, the birthright of every American citizen, and carefully avoided conferring or interfering with political rights or priv- ileges of any kind. * * * * "If the bill now before us, and which es no further than to secure civil rights to the freedman, ran n<.t be passed, then the constitutional amendment proclaiming freedom to all the inhabitants of the land is a cheal and a delusion. •• | ran not better conclude what I have to say than in the language of Mr. Johnson on the occasion of the veto of the Homestead Bill, when, after stating that the fact that the Presi- dent was inconsistent and changed his opinion with reference to a greal measure ami a great principle, is no reason why a Senator or Representative, who has acted understanding^, should change hi- opinion. He said : ••■I hope tin- Senate and Bouse of Representatives, who have sanctioned this bill by more than a two-thirds majority, will, according t<> the Consti- tution, exercise their privilege and power, and let the bill become a law ol the land, according t<> the high behest of the American people. 1 ' On the next day, April 5th, Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, made a speech sustaining the Veto Message. He argued that negn were not citizens ol' the United States by reason of their birth in the United States, and that Congress had no authority by law to declare them such. 'To sustain Ins position, he made quotations from the opinion of the minority in the Dred Scott case, as ren- dered by Mr. Justice Curtis. He then proceeded to reply to some of Mr. Trumbull's arguments against the Veto Message: •••["he honorable member from Illinois disposes of the President's objection to the first section of this bill by saying that it i- merelv declaratory. I know it i> competent for any legislative body, on a question where difference of opinions exist in relation to any legal proposition, to remove them by declaratory legisla- tion : hut that is not the purpose of tlii- bill. It professes to he passed in the exercise of a positive and absolute power to change CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 265 the law — not to declare what the law was in order to remove doubts, but to make the law. Jt assumes, or otherwise there would be no occasion for ir, that birth alone does not confer citizenship j and assuming that no citizenship would exist in con- sequence of birth alone, it declares that birth alone, in spite of State constitution and State laws, shall confer citizenship. Now, with all deference to the opinion of the honorable Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, that seems to me to be a propo- sition as clearly erroneous as any proposition can be in relation to constitutional law. The States were sovereign before the ( in- stitution was adopted; and the Constitution not only, according to its very terms, does not profess to confer upon the Government of the United States all governmental power, but as far as Con- gress is concerned, professes to confer upon that department of the Government only the particular delegated powers there enum- erated; but so anxious were the framers of that instrument and the great men of that day, to whom the subsequent organization of this Government was left, that although they had no doubt as to the principle that only the delegated powers were granted, (and the debates in the Convention itself as well as the debates in the conventions of the several States, when the Constitution was be- fore them for adoption or rejection, all went upon the theory that no powers were conferred except such as were expressly granted, or as were reasonably implied to be as necessary to carry out the pow- ers expressly granted,) by the tenth amendment adopted recently after the Constitution went into operation, and recommended by the men, many of whom were the framers of the Constitution itself, that the powers not delegated by the Constitution, and not denied to the States by the same instrument, were to be considered reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. "Standing, therefore, as well upon the nature of the Govern- ment itself, as a Government of enumerated powers specially dele- gated, as upon the express provision that every thing not granted was to be considered as remaining with the States unless the ( in- stitution contained some particular prohibition of any power before belonging to the States, what doubt can there be that if a Stair possessed the power to declare who should be her citizens before the Constitution was adopted that power remains now as absolute and as conclusive as it was when the Constitution was adopted? The bill, therefore, changes the whole theory of the Government. 266 Till: THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. « r \ The I': sident, then, I think, is right. I go further than he does. I! expresses a doubt whether Congress has the power; I affirm, with all deference to the better judgment of the majority of the Senate who voted for the bill, and to that of the honorable Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, that it is perfectly clear that no such power exists in Cong - the one attempted to be exercised by the first section. I hold, with Mr. Justice Curtis— and his opinion to this day has never been questioned — that citizenship of the United States consequent upon birth in a State i- t<> depend upon the feet whether th< nstitution ami laws <>1* th - make the party so born a citizen <>!' the State. •• But that i- not all. This first section has another provision. Not satisfied with making the parties citizens and clothing them with all the rights belonging to white citizens by the laws of the States, ii 'hat they '-hall he subject to like punishment, pains and penalties, and to nun,' other.' That invades the juris- diction of the Stat.- over their criminal code. Congress assui to define a crime, and defining a crime gives to it- own court- ex- clusive jurisdiction over the crime and the party charged with perpetration. It strikes at the criminal code of the States. The result, therefore, of the three provisions in this section i-. that contrary t<. State constituti 'id State laws, it converts a man that is not a citizen of a State into a citizen of the State; it gives him all the rights that belong t" a citizen of the State; and it provides that his punishment shall only he such as the State laws impose upon white citizens. Where i- the authority to do that? If ;, ii is -till more obvious that the result is an entire annihilation of the power of the States. It seems to be the fash- ion of thi hour — I do not know that my houorable friend from Ulinois goes to that extent— to hold to the doctrine that the ■iter every thing is vested in the Government of the United States th r I'm' the country. It is a perilous delusion. If such a proposition laid been supposed to he found any where in the ( onstitution «»f the United State-, it never would have been adopted b) the people; and if it is assumed, or if it is considered a- constitutionally existing by virtue of some power not before known, the Government will not lasl half a century. 1 have not tin,,, to r ad fr an the writings of Mr. Madison and M r. i tamilton and the decisions of the Supreme < 'ourt <>n the question. ■ • Bui j a, Mr. President, know very well that consolidation CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 267 of power in the Government of the United States was looked upon as certain ruin to republican institutions. In the first place, it would be sure to result in arnarchy ; and in tin' second place, in order to be saved from the horrors of anarchy, we should be compelled to take refuge in despotic power, and the days of constitutional liberty would soon be numbered. The doubt then was, and the doubt now should be more firmly settled in the pub- lie mind, that a country as extensive as that of the United States can not exist except by means of divided sovereignties; one sov- ereignty having charge of all external matters, or matter- between the States to which the powers of the States are inadequate; the other sovereignties having power over all internal matters to the management of which they are adequate. Despotism would soon be our fate, preceded by anarchy; the military chieftain instead of being looked upon, as he should be by every republican, with alarm and concern, would be hailed as a savior in order to save us from the horrors of disorganization. "The honorable member referred to the act of 1790, but it relates entirely to different subjects, and all the statutes to which he adverted are statutes of the same description. What is the twenty-sixth section of the act of 1790 to which he referred? The preceding section provided that no one should sue a foreign minister, and the section to which my friend referred particularly, said that if a party did sue a foreign minister he should be liable to be punished. Certainly ; but why ? Because the Government of the United States was vested with the exclusive authority in all cases depending upon the law of nations; and the law of na- tions saving from responsibility embassadors accredited to the United States, for civil debts, he who attempted to interfere offended against the Government, and he offended in relation to a subject exclusively committed to the General Government. The power, therefore, which Congress exerted in the particular legis- lation to which the honorable member reverted is just the power which they exert when they provide for the punishment of any man who counterfeits the currency of the United State-, or forges its paper, or forge- it- bonds, or interferes with the administration of the Post-office Department. These are all powers incidental to the possession of tin; express power, and in the case to which he adverted the express power was one necessarily belonging to the Government, because it was a power belonging to and regu- 77/ /•; 77/ / /,' T ) '-. \ 7. YTII COJ\ G R ESS. lated by the law of nations, anul>t. that over the question State citizenship the authority of the State Government is supreme. •• Now, the honorable member is counfounding the status of a citizen of the United States and the status of a citizen of the United States who as such is a citizen of the State of his resi- dence. Maintaining, as I do, that then' is n<> authority to make any body n citizen of the United State- so as to convert him therein- into a citizen <>t' a State, there is no authority in the Constitution for this particular bill, which says that because he is a citizen of the United States he i- to be considered a citizen of any State in which he may bo at any time with reference to the rights conferred by this bill. Mr. Trumbull replied: " I desire simply to remark that the speech from which I quoted, made by theSenator from Maryland, was made upon this very bill. It was in reference to this bill that lie was speaking when he laid down the proposition that every person born in the United States since the abolition of slavery was a citizen of the United States, and it' there was any doubt about it, it was proper for us to declare them so, and not only proper, but our duty to do so; and to make the matter specific, the honorable Senator voted for this proposition, which 1 will now read, on the yea- and nay-: ■All persons born in the United Starr-, and not subject to any lorei^n Power, excluding Indiana doI taxed, ;iv hereby declared to be citizens of tin' United States, without distinction of col "Upon the adoption of that proposition as an amendment, it n<>t being in the bill a- originally introduced, the Senator from Maryland, with thirty other-, voted in the affirmative. So we have his high authority for saying that all persons born in the I 'nited State-, and not subject to any foreign Power, are citizens of the United States, exactly a- it appears in this bill." "Mr. Yates, of Illinois, remarked: "1 remember very well CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 273 that the Senator from Maryland offered an amendment to the Freedmen's Bureau Bill to this effect: to strike out the words 'without distinction of color.' 'flic Freedmen's Bureau Bill ap- plied legislation by Congress to the freedmen in the Stales and to the condition of the freedmen in the States. It was legislation that affected the freedmen in the rebellious States. If I remem- ber aright the Senator from Maryland moved to strike out the words 'without distinction of color' in one section of that bill, and for that motion he gave this reason : because, under the Con- stitution of the United States, as amended, abolishing slavery in all the States and Territories of the United States, the freedmen occupied precisely the same position with any other citizen of the United States in any State or Territory. I understood him as taking the broad position, which I have maintained, and which Republican Senators have maintained, and which I think the country maintains, that under the Constitution, as amended, the freedman occupies precisely the same position as any man born in any State or Territory of the United States; and that was the object, if I understood the Senator from Maryland, of his moving to amend the Freedmen's Bureau Bill by striking out the words ' without distinction of color.' " I recognize the authority of the decisions quoted by the Senator from Maryland before the adoption of the amendment to the Constitution. The States had the power over the question of slavery in the States before the amendment to the Constitu- tion; but by the amendment to the Constitution, in which the States have concurred, the freedman becomes a free man, entitled to the same rights and privileges as any other citizen of the United States." Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, spoke in favor of the veto, pre- mising that his words, "if they are not to convince any body in the Senate, may go to the country and be reflected on there." Mr. Cowan said he was quite willing that all the people of this country should enjoy the rights conferred upon them by this bill. But, supposing the bill had all the merit in the world, it would not be effective to attain the ends hoped for by its friends; and apart from that, its provisions were exceedingly dangerous. It gave married women and minors the right to make and enforce contracts. The grammatical structure of a portion of the bill was such as to enable a corrupt, passionate, or prejudiced judge 18 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGREt to take advantage of it in order to widen the jurisdiction of the United States '-Mint-, and drag into them all the business wliich h;ul heretofore occupied the St courts. This would be enough in this nineteenth century t<> make a man tremble for the fate of c institutional government. " It." said Mr. < Wan, " we had un- doubted authority to pass this bill, under the circumstances 1 would not vote for it, on account of its objectionable phraseol its dubious Ian . and the mischief which might attend upon a large and liberal construction of it in the District and Circuit Courts of the United State-." The trouble and expense of ob- taining justice in the United States courts, but one, or at most two existing in any of the Southern States, would debar the African from applying to them for redress. "Your remedy," said the Senator, "is delusive; your remedy i- no remedy at all; and to hold it uj> to the world as a remedy is a gross fraud, how- over pious it may be. It is no remedy to the poor debtor that you prosecute his judge, and threaten him with fine and im- prisonment. It is no remedy to the poor man with a small claim that you locate a court one or two hundred mile- away from him which is so expensive in its administration of justice that he can not enter there. "There is another provision of the hill, which, notwithstand- ing the act of Congress relied upon by the honorable Senator from Illinois, I think is unquestionably anomalous, and to me not only anomalous, hut atrocious; and that i-, the substitution of an indictment for the writ of error. What has been the law of these United States heretofore'.' When an act of Congress came in contact with a State law, and the judge of a State court decided that the law of Congress was unconstitutional, there was an appeal given to the defeated party to the Supreme Court of the United States in order to determine the constitutionality of tin' law. But, sir, who, until the lasl few month-, ever heard of making the judge a criminal because he decided against the con- stitutionality of a law of the United States? One would think we were being transported back to the dark ages of the world when a man i< to he accused and perhaps convicted of a crime who ha- done nothing more than honestly and conscientiously discharged his duty. I know that the persons of embassadors arc sacred, and I know thai it is a very high offense against the law of nations, which no civil judge of any court could justify, to in- CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 275 vade this sacred right of the embassador, but every body knows that that is an exceptional case. Every body knows that in all times and at all ages the judge was punishable who did not respect the person of an embassador. But that is not this case. That analogy will not help the third section of this bill. It is openly avowed upon the floor of the Senate of the United States, in the year of our Lord 1866, in the full blaze and light of the nineteenth century, that the indictment is to be a substi- tute for the writ of error, and it is justified because a judge ought to be indicted who violates the sacred person of an embassador ! What potency there must be in the recent amendment of the Con- stitution which has foisted the negro and set him upon the same platform as the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Great Britain or of all the Russias to the United States of America, and made him as sacred as an embassador, and the judge who decides against him is to be punished as a criminal ! " Mr. Stewart showed that States might easily avoid all the an- noying operations of this bill which were feared by its opponents : " When I reflect how very easy it is for the States to avoid the operation of this bill, how very little they have to do to avoid the operation of the bill entirely, I think that it is robbed of it,^ co- ercive features, and I think no one has any reason to complain because Congress has exercised a power, which it must be con- ceded it has, when it has exercised it in a manner which leaves it so easy for the States to avoid the operation of this bill. If passed to-day, it has no operation in the State of Georgia; it is impossible to commit a crime under this bill in the State of Georgia; and the other States can place themselves in the same position so easily that I do not believe they ought to complain." He then read the second section of an act passed in Georgia, precisely similar to the first section of the Civil Rights Bill. Nothing could be done in Georgia under •' color of law," which would subject officers to the penalties provided by the Civil Rights Bill. " It being so easily avoided by being complied with, by doing a simple act of justice, by carrying out the spirit of the constitutional amendment, I can not give my consent to defeal a bill the purpose of which is good, the operation of which ' innocent, and may be so easily avoided." The Republican Senators were desirous of bringing the bill to a final vote on this evening, but on account of the illness of - 76 THE ill lin'V-XI.XTll f".\ itor Wright, of New Jersey, it was proposed by Democratic members to appoint some hour <>n the following day when the should be taken in order that they might have a full v Mr. W i HiiOj said: " It' this was a question in the ordi- nary course of legislation, I certainly would not object to the proposition which the gentlemen on the other side make; but \ view it as one <>f the greatest and most fundam that h; - ver come before this body for settlement, and 1 look upon it as having bearings altogether beyond the qui stion on this bill. The bill is, undoubtedly, a very good on . There is no constitutional objection to it ; there has been no objection to it 1 that creates a doubt in the mind of any mortal man; but, nevertheless, we are at issue with the President of the United States upon a question peculiarly our own. The President of the United State- has no more power under the Constitution to interpose his authority here, to prescribe the principle upon which these States should he admitted to this Union, than any man of this body has out of it. The Constitution makes him the executive of the laws that we make, and there it leaves him ; and what i- our condition '.' We who are to judge of the forms of government under which State- shall exist ; we. who are the only power that i- charged with this great question, are to he somehow or other wheedled out of it by the President by reason of the authority that he up. "Sir, we can not abandon it unless we yield t'. a principle that will unhinge and unsettle the balances of the Constitution itself. It" the President of the United States can interpose hi- authority upon a question of this character, and can compel Congre* succumb to hi- dictation, he is an emperor, a despot, and not a President of the United State-. Because T believe the _ question of' congressional (tower and authority i- at -take here, [ yield to no importunities of the other side. [feel myself justi- fied in taking every advantage which the Almighty has put into my hands to defend the power and authority of this body, of which I claim to lie a part. I will not yield to these appeals of comity on a question like this; hut I will tell the President and every body else that, if God Almighty has striken one member bo that he can uot he here to uphold the dictation "fa despot, I thank him tor hi- interposition, and I will tah ' igi of it if I can." CI VI L II I ( ; H TS BILL. 377 Mr. McDougall, of California, replied to Mr. Wade. This wayward Senator from California has wide notoriety from his unhappy habits of intemperance. He has been described by a writer unfriendly to his politics as "the most brilliant man in the Senate; a man so wonderfully rich, that though he seeks to beggar himself in talents and opportunities, he has lefl a patrimony large enough to outdazzle most of his colleagues." He frequently would enter the Senate-chamber in a condition of apparent stupor, un- able to walk straight; and after listening a few moments to what was going on, has arisen and spoken upon the pending question in words of great beauty and force. On this occasion Mr. McDougall is described as having been in a worse condition than usual. His words were muttered rather than spoken, so that only those immediately about him could hear; and yet his remarks were termed by one of his au- ditors as "one of the neatest little speeches ever heard in the Senate." His remarks were as follows : " The Senator from Ohio is in the habit of appealing to his God in vindication of his judg- ment and conduct; it is a common thing for him to do so; but in view of the present demonstration, it may well be asked who and what is his God. In the old Persian mythology there was an Ormudz and an Ahriman — a god of light and beauty, and a god of darkness and death. The god of light sent the sun to shine, and gentle showers to fructify the fields ; the god of dark- ness sent the tornado, and the tempest, and the thunder, scathing with pestilence the nations. And in old Chaldean times men came to worship Ahriman, the god of darkness, the god of pesti- lence and famine; and his priests became multitudinous; they swarmed the land ; and when men prayed then their offerings were, 'We will not sow a field of grain, we will not dig a well, we will not plant a tree/ These were the offerings to the dark spirit of evil, until a prophet came who redeemed that ancient land; but he did it after crucifixion, like our great Master. "The followers of Ahriman always appealed to the same spirit manifested by the Senator from Ohio. Death is to be one of his angels now to redeem the Constitution and the laws, and to estab- lish liberty. Sickness, suffering, evil, are to be his angels ; and he thanks the Almighty, his Almighty, that sickness, danger, and evil are about ! It may be a good god for him in this world : but if there is any truth in what we learn about the orders of religion THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS in this Christian world, his faith will not help him when he shall id up and ask entrance at the crystal doors. If there can be evil expressed in high places that< uuunicates evil thoughts, that communicates evil teachings, thai de -alizes the youth, who re- ceive impressions as does the wax, i; is by such lessons as the Senator from Ohio now teaches by word of mouth - Senator in t!ii— Senate hall. Sir, the Presidenl of the United States is a constitutional offi- cer, clothed with high power, and clothed with the very po which he has exercised in this instance; and those who conferred . him these powers were men such as Madison, and -I ly, and Hamilton, and Morris, and Washington, and a host <>}' worth men who, I think, knew as much about the lav government, and how they should be rightly balanced, as any of the wisest who now sit here in council. It is the duty of the Presidenl of the United States to stand as defender of the Constitution in his place as the conservator of the rights of the people, as tribune of the people, as it was in old Rome when the people did choose their tribunes to go into the senate-chamber among the aristocracy of m\ and when they passed laws injurious to the Roman people, to stand and say, ' I tin-hid it.' "That is the veto power, incorporated wisely by our fathers in Constitution, conferred upon the President of the United ■<, and to be treated with consideration ; and no appeal of the Senator to his God can change the Constitution or the rights of the President of the United States, or can prevent a just consid- ion of the dignity of this Senate body by persons who have just consideration, who feel that they are Senators •• It is a strange thing, an exceedingly strange thing, that when ;; i w Senators in the city of Washington, ill at their houses, give ranee thai they can be here to act upon a great public question on the day following this, we should hear a piece of declamation, the Senator appealing to his ( rod, and saying, with an To triumphe air, ' Well or ill. God ha- made them ill." Sir. the god of deso- lation, the god of darkness, the god of evil is hi- god. 1 never I to hear such objections raised among honorable men; and men to he Senators should be honorable men. 1 never pected to hear such things in (hi- hall; and 1 rose simply to say such sentiment- were to he condemned, and must receive my CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 279 condemnation, now and here; and if it amounts to a rebuke, I trust it may be a rebuke." The Senate adjourned, with the understanding that the vote should be taken on the following day. In the morning hour on that day, as the States were called for the purpose of giving Sen- ators an opportunity (4' introducing petitions or resolutions, Mr. Lane, of Kansas, presented a joint resolution providing for ad- mitting Senators and Representatives from the States lately in insurrection. This bill, emanating from a Republican Senator, who professed to have framed it as an embodiment of the Presi- dent's policy, was evidently designed to have an influence upon the action of the Senate upon the Civil Rights Bill. It prop that Senators and Representatives from the late rebellious States should be admitted into Congress whenever it should appear that thev had annulled their ordinances of secession, ratified the con- stitutional amendment abolishing slavery, repudiated all rebel debts, recognized the debts of the United States, and extended the elective franchise to all male persons of color residing in the State, over twenty-one years of age, who can read and write, and who own real estate valued at not less than two hundred and fifty dollars. As a reason for introducing this measure, Mr. Lane, of Kansas, remarked : " I have been laboring for months to harmonize the President of the United States with the majority on the floor of Congress. I thought yesterday that there was a hope of securing such a result. It did seem that some of the members of this body were disposed to harmonize with the President, I proposed to go very far yesterday to secure that harmony. But while pur- suing this course, we were awakened by one of the most vindic- tive assaults ever made upon any official, by either friend or oppo- nent, from the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Wade] — an assault upon my personal friend, a man who for two years sat side by side with me here, whom 1 learned to respect and admire for his pluck, his ability, and integrity, and to love for his manly virtues; a man whom I originally selected as the candidate of the Republican party for the second office within the gift of that party; a man whom T urged on the Republican conventional Baltimore a- their candidal'' ; a man whose election 1 did my utmost to secure against the efforts of the Senator from ( )hio. In the most critical moment of that political campaign, an assault was made on our presi- ^6> THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGREt •Initial candidate in the same spirit evinced by him yesterday in hi< attack iijom the President. I defended the candidate of the Republican party against thai assault, and 1 defend the President of the Republican party against the assault of yesterday. ••A despot!' 'A dictator!' In what'.' In seeking to re- construct the rebellious States in violation of the wishes of the Congress of the United S When Mr. Johnson took his seat in the presidential chair, I ask you, -ir. what had Cong - done? The people of the CJnil bad done this : Mr. Lin- coln had marked out the policy of reconstruction, since adopted by Mr. Johnson, and the people of the United States, the party to which the Senator from Ohio and myself belong, indorsed by triumphant majorities that very reconstruction policy. A despot for proposing, in violation of the wishes of the Congress of the United Sta reconstruct the insurrectionary State- upon the theory expressed in that joint resolution annulling the ordinances of secession, ratifying the amendment to the Constitution abolish- > ing slavery, repudiating the Confederate debt, indorsing the na- tional debt, and extending suffrage to all colored men who can read the Constitution of the United States and sign their name-, and to all colored men owning and paying tuxes upon $250 worth of property ! ■• Mr. President. I am not as conversant with the constituency of the Senator from Ohio as he is, but I venture the assertion that outside of New England there is not a single Northern State in this Union but will by a majority vote to indorse the policy of reconstruction advised by President Johnson and expressed in that joint resolution. Von can not carry before the people of this country suffrage to the unqualified black man. You can not find S ate in this Union outside of New England, in my judgment, that will indorse that policy. Restrict it to a qualification clause, as the President of the United Suites recommends, and you can carry the Republican Union party every-where, and with una- nimity. "The President of the United State- "a despot' for exercising; a constitutional right in vetoing a hill passed by Congr ss! Mr. Presid snt, had tin : >r from < >hio occupied the position which upied by President Johnson, in my judgment, he would have d the ( 'ivil Rights Bill. ' A despot! ' What is the exercise of the Veto power.' 1: , !v to . vote to reconsider, CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. -SI with the lights given in his reasons for the veto. When before has the exercise of a constitutional right justified a political friend of the President of the United States in denouncing that Presi- dent as a despot and a dictator? lie has been and is now, in my judgment, as anxious to harmonize the difficulties in the Union party as any Senator upon this floor. If he was met in the same spirit, that party would be reunited and this Union would he re- stored. His advances are met by insult ; his advances are met by denunciation from the leader of the Republican party upon this fh.ur in language without a parallel. Mr. President, so far as I am concerned, I propose to-day and hereafter to take my position alongside the President of the Republican party, and stand there unflinchingly so long as he remains faithful to the principles of that party, defending him against the Senator from Ohio as I de- fended his predecessor against the same Senator." Mr. Lane then expressed his desire that his proposition should lie upon the table and be printed. An order having been entered to that effect, Mr. Wade addressed the Senate. He remarked: "It is said I made an attack on the President of the United States. As a Senator upon this floor, I care no more about the opinions of the President of the United States than I do about those of any respectable Senator upon this floor, or any Senator on this floor. Who is your President, that every man must bow to his opinion? Why, sir, we all know him; he is no stranger to this body. We have measured him; we know his height, his depth, his length, his breadth, his capacity, and all about him. Do you set him up as a paragon and declare here on the floor of this Senate that you are going to make us all bow down before him ? Is that the idea ? You [to Mr. Lane, of Kansas,] are going to be his apologist and defender in whatever he may propose to do! Is that the understanding of the Senator from Kansas? "I do not believe that his constituents will be quite satisfied with so broad a declaration, that he is to wear any man's collar, and follow him wherever he may go. Did I use harsh language toward the President yesterday? All that I said 1 stand by to- day and forever. What was the question 141011 which 1 made those observations, and what has been the opinion of the President heretofore? what has been his action since? Here arc time null- ion people, our friends, friends to the < rovernment, who generously came forward in its difficulty, and helped us throughout the war, TUB THIRTY-. XI. XT II CONGRESS irificed their blood and their lives to maintain the issue on our side, and who were faithful beyond all men that were ever faith- ful before, to us during the whole of the difficulty, every-where our brave bo! tiers in the field, laying down their Ha to maintain our principles, and ministering in every way to the misfortun tur brave men whenever they fell into tin- hands of those worse than savages with whom we were warring; and dow these men arc laboring, are under one of the most frightful despotisms that ever settled down upon the heads of mankind. Three million people are exposed to the outrages, the insolence, the murder of those worse than savages, their former masters, murdered as we hear every day, oppressed every-where, their risrhts taken away, their manhood trampled under fool : and Con- gress, under the Constitution of the United States, endeavors to extend to them some little protection, and how are we met here? Every attempt of your Moses has been to trample them down worse, and to throw every obstruction in the way of any relief that could be proposed by Congress. Be has from all appear- ances li>. •..me their inveterate and relentless foe, making violent war upon any member of Congress who dares raise his voice or give his vote in favor of any measure having for it- object the amelioration of the condition of these poor people. Talk to me about the Presidenl being their friend! When did it ever hap- pen before that a great measure of relief to suffering humanity on as broad a scale as this was met by the stern veto of the President of the United Stat.-, and without being able when he undertal t,, make hi- obstruction to our measure- to designate a singk clause of the Constitution that he pretend- has beeu violated. "Yesterday what was the issue? I was charged with great cruelty on this floor, because 1 was unwilling to wait for recruits to he brought in here for the purpose of overthrowing tin' ground we had taken upon this important question whether these p ' people shall have relief or not. Now. 1 wish to say that 1 am willing t" extend courtesy to our old associates on this floor un- der other circumstances ; but when you extend this kind of cour- -v I., them, the result is death and destruction to three million people, trampled under the feet of their former masters. My courtesy is extended to those poor men. and 1 would not wait a moment that their enemies may he brought in here in order to prevent our doing any thin their relief, joining with the CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 283 President, who is determined, if we may judge by his acts, that no measure having for its object any relief shall be extended to them. •• Did you hear the fact stated here the other day, that bills were drawn with a view to escape the anathemas of your Presi- dent, and were exhibited to him, and he asked ' if he had any objection to them to look them over well, because il* we can, con- sistent with the object aimed at, make them clear of any objection you may have, we will do it '.' ' " I said, sir, that he seemed to have meditated a controversy with Congress from the beginning, and he has. He has treated our majorities as hostile to the people; two thirds of both branches of Congress have been treated by him as mere factionists, dis- unionists, enemies to the country, bent upon its destruction, bar- gaining with the enemy to destroy the Government. This is the way the President has treated Congress, and every bill they have passed, which promised any relief to the men whom we are bound to protect, has been trampled under the Executive heel ; and even when members of this body did what I say they ought not to have done — for I do not approve of my brother Trumbull's go- ing up to the President, when he has a measure pending here as a Senator, to ask the President, in the first place, whether he will approve of it or not ; even when he was asked if he objected to this measure, and made no objection, he still undertakes to veto it. " If Congress should recede from the position they have taken to claim jurisdiction over this great question of readmitting these States, from that hour they surrender all the power that the Con- stitution places in their hands and that they were sworn to sup- port, and they are the mere slaves of an accidental Executive ; of a man who formerly associated with us upon this floor; who was no more infallible than the rest of us poor mortals; and yet the moment, by death or accident, he is placed in the executive chair, it would seem as if some Senators believed him to be endowed with superhuman wisdom, and ought to be invested with all the powers of this Government; that Congress ought to get on their knee- before him, and take his insults and his dictation without itment and without even an attempt to resist. Some States may semi such instrumentalities here, but God knows some will not : and I pity those that do, for they would hold their freedom on a very uncertain! tenure. 284 ■ THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRE& "Som< gentlemen may be patienl under the charge of treason, perhaps the more so because treason is becoming popular in this this nation ami anarchy and despotism. If we give way, the hope "i' this nation is lost by the recreancy— yea, sir, I will - the treachery — of a man who betrayed our confidence, got into power, and ha- gone into the camp of the enemy, and joined those who never breathed a breath of principle in common with us." Mi-. Lane replied: "I stated that the party to which I belong nominated the present President of the United States and elected him, and that as lone,' a- he fought within OUT lines and remained in our party, I would endeavor to defend him upon tlii— floor againsl all unjust assaults. After making thai statement, the Senator from Ohio, forgetting the position he occupies, has sug- ed thai 1 have taken upon myself the collar of the President of the United States. 1 hurl the suggestion in the teeth of the Senator from Ohio as unworthy a Senator. I wear a color! The pro-slavery party of the United States, hacked by a Democratic Administration, sustained and supported ly the arm} of the United States, could not fasten a collar upon the handful of Kansas squatters of whom I had the honor to be the leader. The gallant fight made in this Senate-chamber by the Senator CIVIL BIGHTS BILL. 285 from Ohio, aided by the Senators from Massachusetts and other Senators, would have been of but little avail had it not been for that other fight that was made upon the prairies of Kansas under the lead of your humble speaker. I wear a collar! In- dicted for treason by a pro-slavery grand jury, hunted from State to State by a writ founded upon that indictment for treason, and §100,000 offered foi my bead! -lira Lane wear a collar! Wher- ever he is known, that charge will be denounced as false by both friends and enemies.'' Mr. Brown, of Missouri, made a short speech, in which he set forth the position of Mr. Lane, of Kansas, on questions previ- ously before the Senate, showing their inconsistency with some of his recent remarks. Mr. Doolittle next delivered a speech, in the course of which lie called attention to a bill which he had drawn "to provide ap- propriate legislation to enforce article thirteen of the Amendments to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in the United States." His object in presenting this bill was to "avoid the objections raised by men not only in this body, but in the other house, and the objections raised by the President of the United States, to the bill now pending. He endeavored to explain his position and changes of opinion upon the Civil Rights: "While this measure was upon its pass- age, I took no part in its discussion except upon a single point in relation to the Indian tribes. The bill passed, and the final vote was taken when I was not present in the Senate ; but it was not under such circumstances that, had I been here, I should not have voted for the bill. I have no doubt that if I had been present I should have voted for it. My attention was not drawn very earnestly to the consideration of all the provisions of this bill until the bill had passed from Senate and had gone to the 'louse of Representatives, when the speeches of Mr. Bingham, of Ohio, and of Mr. Delano, of Ohio, both able and distinguished lawyers of that State, arrested my attention and called me very carefully to the consideration of the great questions which are involved in the bll. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives; it went to the President, From the fact that it was not signed and returned to this body at once, and from all I heard. 1 be- came satisfied that, at least, if the bill was not to be returned 19 3G THE TIIIRTr-XI.YTIl CONGRE& with ol>j actions, it was being withheld for most earnest and seri- ous consideration by the Executive. "Then, Mr. President, it was, in view of all that had occurred, what had been said by gentlemen in whom I had the utmost — I may say unbounded — confidence, that I began to look into this ■ measure and to study it for myself. It is n<>t my purpose now to go into a discussion of the provisions of this hill any further than to say thai there are provisions in it upon which the judg- ments of the best patriots, the best jurists, the most earnest men disagree. There are men, in whom I have entire confidence, who maintain that all it- provisions are within the purview of the Constitution ; there arc others in whom I have confidence, and equal confidence, who maintain directly the contrary; and this has brought me seriously to consider whether there be no com- mon ground upon which friend- can stand and stand together. Sir, I may have failed to find it ; but if 1 have, it is not hecau-' I have not most earnestly sought for it with some days oi' study and most earnest reflection. I have endeavored to put upon paper what I believe would carry this constitutional provision into effect and yet would be a common ground on which we could unite without violating the conscientious convictions of amy." In concluding his remarks, Mr. Doolittle referred to instruc- tions received by him from the Legislature of Wisconsin: "Mr. President, I have received, in connection with my colleague, a telegraphic dispatch from the Governor of the State of Wiscon- sin, which I have QO doubt i- correct, although 1 have not seen the resolution which is said to have been passed by the Legisla- ture, in which it is stated that the Legislature has passed a reso- lution instructing the Senator- in Congress from Wisconsin to vote I'm- the passage of the Senate hill commonly known as the Civil Rights Bill, the veto of the President to the contrary not- withstanding. I have already stated, from m\ stand-point, the reasons why, in my judgment, I can not do it ; I have stated them freely and frankly, and, as a matter of course, I expect to abide the consequences. I know that it has sometimes been said to me, by those, too, in whom I would have confidence, that for me, under circumstances like these, not to follow the instructions of the Legislature of my State, would he to terminate my polit- ical life. Sir, he it so. I never held or aspired to any other office politically than the .me I now hold; and God knows, if I CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 2S7 know my own heart, if I can see this Union restored after this gigantic war which has put clown the rebellion, and to which I have lent my support, I shall he satisfied. I do not desire to remain in political life beyond that hour. There is nothing in that which will have the slightest influence whatever upon me. The duty which I owe to myself, the duty which I owe to the country, the duty which I owe to the union of these States, and the preservation of the rights of the States, and the duty which I owe to the great Republican party, which I would still desire to save, prompts me to pursue the course which I now do." Mr. Garret Davis, of Kentucky, addressed the Senate in a long speech, of which the following is the closing paragraph : "Public justice is often slow, but generally sure. Think you that the people will look on with folded arms and stolid indiffer- ence and see vou subvert their Constitution and liberties, and on their ruins erect a grinding despotism. No ; erelong they will rise up with earthquake force and fling yon from power and place. I commend to your serious meditation these words : ' Go tell Sylla that you saw Caius Marius sitting upon the ruins of Carthage ! ' " Mr. Saulsbury thought a revolution would result from the passage of this bill : " In my judgment the passage of this bill is the inauguration of revolution — bloodless, as yet, but the at- tempt to execute it by the machinery and in the mode provided in the bill will lead to revolution in blood. It is well that the American people should take warning in time and set their house in order, but it is utterly impossible that the people of this coun- try Avill patiently entertain and submit to this great wrong. I do not say this because I want a revolution : Heaven knows we have had enough of bloodshed ; we have had enough of strife ; there has been enough of mourning in every household; there are too many new-made graves on which the grass has not yet grown for any one to wish to see the renewal of strife; but, sir, attempt to execute this act within the limits of the States of this Union, and, in my judgment, this country will again be plunged into all the horrors of civil war." Mr. McDougall said: "I agree with the Senator from Dela- ware that this measure is revolutionary in its character. The majority glory in their giant power, but they ought to under- stand that it is tyrannous to exercise that power like a giant. A ?<5 Til!-: THIRTY-NINTH CONGI revolution now is moving onward : it has it- center in the North- east. A spirit has been radiating out from there for years as revolutionary as the spirit that went out from Charleston, South Carolina, and perhaps it- consequences will be equally fatal, for when thai revolutionary struggle comes it will not be a war between the North ami it- power and the slaveholding pop- ulation of the South ; it will l>e among tin- North men them- selves, they who have lived under the shadows of great oaks, and -cfii the tall pine-trees bend." At the conclusion of the remarks by the Senator from Califor- nia, the vote was taken, with the following result: 5Teas— Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Chandler, Clark, Conness, Cragin, < well, Edmunds, Fessenden, Foster, Grimes, Harris, Henderson, Howard, Howe, Kirkwood, Lane of Indiana, Morgan, Morrill, Nye, Poland, Pom Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner-, Trumbull, Wade, Willey, Wil- liams, Wilson, and Yates — 33. Nays — Messrs. Buckalew, Cowan. Davis, Doolittle, Guthrie, Hendri Johnson, Lane .it' Kansas, McDougall, Nesmith, Norton, Riddle, Saulsbury, Van Winkle, ami Wright — 1"). Assent — Mr. Dixon. The President pm tempore then made formal announcement of the result: "The yens being 33 and the nays 15, the hill has passed the Semite by the requisite constiutional majority, not- withstanding the objection of the President to the contrary." < >n the 9th of April. 1866, three days after the passage of tin 1 hill in the Senate, the House of Representatives proceeded to ][< consideration. The hill and the President's Yet<> Message hav- ing been read, Mr. Wilson, of Iowa, demanded the previous ques- tion on the passage of the hill, the objections of the President to the contrary notwithstanding, and gave his reasons for so doing: "Mr. Speaker, the debate which occurred on this hill occupied two weeks of the time of this House. Some forty speeches were made, and the debate was not brought to a close until all had been heard who expressed a desire to speak upon the hill. At the close of that debate, the hill was passed by more than two- thirds of this Mouse. It has been returned to us with the objec- tions of' the President to it- becoming a law. 1 do not propose ti> re pen the discussion of this measure; I am disposed to leave the close of this debate to the President by the message which has just been read. 1 ask the friends of this great measure to CIVIL RIGTfS BILL. 289 answer the argument and statements of that message bv their vote-." The vote was finally taken on the question, 'Shall this hill pass, notwithstanding the objections of the President?" The fol- lowing is the record of the vote: Yeas — Messrs. Alley, Allison. Delo* R. Ashley. James M. Ashley, Baker, Baldwin, Banks, Barker, Baxter, Beaman, Benjamin, Bidwell, Boutwell, Brandegee, Bromwell, Broomall, Buckland, Bundy, Reader W. Clark'', Sid- ney Clarke, Cobb, Colfax, Conkling, Cook, Cullom, Darling, Davis. Dawes, Defrees, Delano. Deininjr. Dixon. Dodge, Donnelly, Eckley, Eggleston, Eliot, Farnsworth, Farquhar, Ferry, Garfield, Crinnell, Griswold, Hale. Abner ' '. Harding, Hart, Hayes, Henderson, Higby, Hill, Holmes. Hooper, Hotch- kiss. Asahel W. Hubbard, Chester D. Hubbard. John H. Hubbard. James R. Hubbell, Hulburd, James Humphrey, Ingefsoll, Jenek"s. Ka;un.' right in every State and Territory in the United - to make and enforc sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding. "Sec. - And >>■ it further That any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, shall subject, or cause t<> be subjected, any inhabitant of any State or Territory to the deprivation of any right secured or protected by this act, or to different punishment, pains, or penalties on account of such person having at any time been held in a condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where. if the party shall have been duly convicted, or by reason of his color or race, than is prescribed for the punishment of white persons, shall he deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and. on conviction, shall be punished by a fine m ling >1 000, or imprisonment not ex.- ling one year, or both, in the discretion of the court. further . That the district courts of the United States, within their respective districts, shall have, exclusively of the court- oi tiie several St:'! aizance of all crimes and offenses committed against the provisions of this act, and also, concurrently with the circuit courts of the United States, of all causes, civil ami criminal, affectin ns who are denied or can not enforce in the courts or judicial tribunals of the State or locality where they may he. any of the rights seeured to them by the t tion of ; ami if any suit or prosecution, civil or criminal, has been or -hall be commenced in any State court against anv such person, for any cause whatsoever, or against anv officer, r pro -- - . • said, shall have author • to summon and call to their aid the bystanders or the posse comit proper county, or Buch portion of the land and naval forces of the Uni1 States, or the militia, as may be necessary to the performance of the duty with which they are charged, and to insure a faithful »f the clause of the Constitution which prohibits slavery, in conformity with the provisions of this act; and said warrants shall run and i ■ ' bj - ■ in the State or Territory within which they an.- issued ~ .i led, That any person who .-hall knowi and willfully obstruct, hinder, or prevent any officer, or other ; with the execution of any warrant or process issued under the provisi ut' this act, or any person or persons lawfully assisting him or I arresting any person for whose apprehension Buch warrant or j . : oay have been issued, or shall rescue or attempt to rescue Buch person from the custody of the officer, other person or persons, or those lawfully ass ing as aforesaid, when so arrested pursuant to the authority herein gii and declared, or who shall aid, abet, or assist any arrested as aforesaid, directly or indirectly, to escape from the custody of the officer or other person legally authorized as aforesaid, or shall harbor or - ■ iny person for whose arrest a warrant or process shall have i a issued as aforesaid, so as to prevent his discovery and arrest after notice or knowledge of the fact that a warrant has been issued for the apprehension of such per- son, shall, for either of said offenses, be Bubject to a fine not exceeding $] 000, and imprisonment not exceeding six months, by indictment and on viction before the district court of the United States for the district in which said offense may have been committed, or before the proper c iurt of crim- inal jurisdiction, if committed within any one ol' the organized Territoi of the United Sta "Si. 7 And be it fur ■■'. That the district attorneys, the mar- shals the deputies, and the clerks of the said district and territorial courts shall be paid for their services the like fees as may be allowed to them similar Bcrvices in other cases; and in all cases where the pro< dings are before a commissioner, he -hall be entitled to a fee of ten I dlars in full for his services in each ease, inclusive of all services incident I Buch an and examination. The person or persons authorized to execute the process to I"- issued by such commissioners for the arrest of offenders against the provision- of this act, Bhall be entitled to a fee of five dollars for each | lie or they may arrest and take before anj Buch commissioner as af said, with such other may be deemed reasonable by Buch commis sinner for Buch other additional services as may be necessarily performed by him or them. Buch a- attending at the examination, keeping the prisoner in custody, and providing him with food and lodging during his detention, and until the final determination of such commissioner, and in general for per- CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. 293 forming such other duties as may be required in the premises; such to be made up in conformity with the fees usually charged ly the offi of the courts of justice within the proper district or county, as uear as may be practicable, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States on the certificate of the judge of the district within which the arrest is made, and to be recoverable from the defendant as part of the judgment in case of conviction. "Sec. 8. And be it further enacted, That whenever the President of the United States shall have reason to believe that offenses have been or are likely to be committed against the provisions of this act within any judicial district, it shall be lawful for him, in his discretion, to direct the judge, marshal, and district attorney of such district to attend at such place within the district, and for such time as he may designate, for the purpose of the more speedy arrest and trial of persons charged with a violation of this act; and it shall be the duty of every judge or other officer, when any such requisition shall be received by him, to attend at the place, and for the time therein designated. "Sec. 9. And be it further enacted. That it shall be lawful for the Presi- dent of the United States, or such person as he may empower for that pur- pose, to employ such part of the land or naval forces of the United St or of the militia, as shall be necessary to prevent the violation and enforce the due execution of this act. " Sec. 10. And be it further enacted, That upon all questions of law aris- ing in any cause under the provisions of this act a final appeal may be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States." 294 THE THIRTY-JflJfTB CONGRESS. CHAPTK1! XII THE SECOND FBEEDMEN'S BUREAU BILL BECOMES A LAW". The Discovert or the Majority — The Senate Bill — The I! 1.1. — Its Provisions — Passage of the Bill — Amendment and Passagi in the 5 hate— Committee of Conference — The Amendments as Accepted — The Bill as Passed — T . ■ — The Proposition of \ Democrat iepted— in Leadership — Passage of the Bill over thk ... —It Becomes a Law. CONGRESS having succeeded in placing the Civil Rights I > i 1 1 in tlicstaiutc-lH.uk in spite of Executive opposition, was not disposed to allow other Legislation which was regarded important to go by default. The disposition of the President, now plainly apparent, to oppose all Legislation which the party thai had elevated him to office inighl consider appropriate to the condition of the rebel States, the majority in Congress discovered that, if they would make progress in the work before them, the) must he content to d<> without Executive approval. The defec- tion of the President from the principles of the part)' which had elected him. SO tar from dividing and destroying that party, had rathei- given it consolidation and strength. After the veto of the Civil Rights Bill, a very few members of the Senate and House of Representatives who had been elected as Republicans adhered to the President, but the mosi of those who had wavered stepped forward into the ranks of the " Radicals," as they were called, and a firm and invincible "two-thirds" moved forward to consummate legislation which they deemed essential to the interests '»f the nation. So fully convinced were the majority that some effective legisla- tion for the freedmen should be mmated, that two days the final vote in which the former bill failed to p ; i-< over the veto, S< ■ itor Wilson introduced a hill " to continue in force tic Bu- THE FREEDMEN. 295 reau for the relief of Freedmen and Refugees," which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Military Affairs. The. bill, however, which subsequently became a law, origi- nated in the House of Representatives. In that branch of Con- gress was a Special Committee on the Freedmen, who were able to give more immediate and continuous attention to that class of people than could committees such as those of the Judiciary and Military Affairs, having many other subjects to consider. The Committee on the Freedmen, having given much time and attention to the perfection of a measure to meet the neces- sities of the case, on the 22d of May reported through their chairman, Mr. Eliot, "A bill to continue in force and amend an act entitled 'an act to establish a Bureau for the relief of Freed- men and Refugees, and for other purposes.' " This bill provided for keeping in force the Freedmen's Bureau then in existence for two years longer. Some of the features to which the President had objected in his veto of the former bill had been modified and in part removed. In providing for the education of freedmen, the commissioner was restricted to co- operating so far with the charitable people of the country as to furnish rooms for school-houses and protection to teachers. The freedmen's courts were to be kept in existence till State legisla- tion should conform itself to the Civil Rights Bill, and the dis- turbed relations of the States to the Union were restored. The President was required to reserve from sale public lands, not ex- ceeding in all one million of acres, in Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana, to be assigned in parcels of forty acres and less t<» loyal refugees and freedmen. One week after the introduction of the bill, its consideration was resumed. The question was taken without debate, and the bill passed by a vote of ninety-six in favor and thirty-two against the measure. Fifty-five members failed to vote. On the day following, May :50th, the clerk of the House con- veyed the bill to the Senate. Tt was there referred to the Com- mittee on Military Affairs, as that committee already had before them seven bills relating to the same subject. Nearly a fortnight subsequently, the committee reported back to the Senate the House bill with certain amendments. The report of the com- mittee, and the amendments proposed therein, could not tie con- sidered in the Senate until the lapse of another fortnight On 296 THE Til I R T I -. \ 7. \ 77/ COJ\ \ ! B E& ?. the 26th of June, the amendments devised by thi committee were read in the Senate and adopted. Mr. Davis made a number of attempts to have the bill laid on the table or deferred to a subsequent day, but without success. Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Buckalew made ineffectual attempts to amend the Itill by pro- posing to strike out' important sections. The Senate indulged in but little discussion of the ltill or the amendments. The bill as amended finally passed the Senate by a vote of twenty-six for and six against the measure. The bill then went to the House for the concurrence of that body in the amendments passed by the Senate. The Committee on the Freedmen made a report, which was adopted by the House, to non-concur in the amendments of the Senate. A Committee of Conference was appointed on the part of the Senate and the House. They, alter consultation, made a report by which the Senate amendments, with some modifications, were adopted. Mr. Eliot, Chairman of the Committee on the Freedmen, and of the Committee of Conference on the part of the House, at the request of a member, thus explained the amendments proposed by the Senate: " The first amendment which the Senate made to the bill, as it was passed by the House, was simply an enlargement of one of the sections of the House bill, which provided that the volunteer medical officers engaged in the medical department of the bureau might be continued, inasmuch as it was expected that the medical force of the regular army would be speedily reduced to the minimum, and in that case all the regular officers would be wanted in the service. It wa- therefore thought right that there should 1"- some force connected with the Bureau of Refu- es and Freedmen. The Senate enlarged the provisions of the House bill by providing that officers of the volunteer service now on duty might be continued as assistant commissioners ami other officers, and that the Secretary of War might lill vacancies until other officers could be detailed from the regular army. That is the substance of the first material amendment. "The next amendment strikes out a portion of one of the sec- tions nl' the House bid, which related t<> the officers who serve as medical officers of the bureau, because it was provided for in the amendment to which 1 have just referred. "The next amendment strikes out from the House hill the THE FREEDMEN. 207 section which sei apart, reserved from sale, a million acres of land in the Gulf States. It may perhaps be recollected that when the bill was reported from the committee, I stated that, in case the bill which the House had then passed, and which was known as the Homestead Bill, and which was then before the Senate, should Inn mie a law, this section of the bill would not be wanted. The bill referred to has become a law, and this section live, providing for that reservation, has, therefore, been stricken from the bill. "The next amendment made by the Senate was to strike out a section of the House bill which simply provided that upon appli- cation for restoration by the former owners of the land assigned under General Sherman's field order, the application should not be complied with. That section is stricken out and another sub- stituted for it, which provides that certain lands which are now owned by the United States, having been purchased by the United States under tax commissioners' sales, shall be assigned in lots of twenty acres to freedmen who have had allotments under General Sherman's field order, at the price for which the lands were pur- chased by the United States ; and not only that those freedmen should have such allotments, but that other freedmen who had had lots assigned to them under General Sherman's field order, and who may have become dispossessed of their land, should have assignments made to them of these lands belonging to the United States. I think the justice of that provision will strike every one. And it will be perhaps a merit in the eyes of many that it does not call upon the Treasury for the expenditure of any money. In the bill which was passed by the House, it will be recollected that there was a provision under which there should be purchased by the commissioner of the bureau enough public lands to be sub- stituted for the lands at first assigned to freedmen. Instead of that, provision is made by which they can have property belonging to the United States which lias come into its possession under tax sales, and where the titles have been made perfect by lapse of time. "The next amendment of the Senate provides that certain lands which were purchased by the United States at tax sales, and which arc now held by the United State.-, should be sold at prices not less than ten dollars an acre, and that the proceeds should be invested for the support of schools, without distinction of color or race, on the islands in the parishes of St. Helena and St. Luke. That is all the provision which was made for education. 298 TEE TEIRTY-JfltfTE CONGRESS "The only other material amendment made bytheSenato to the commissioner of the bureau power t<> take property of the late Confederate States, held by them or in trust for them, and which is now in charge of the commissioner of the bureau, to takr that property and devote it to educational purposes. The amendment further provides that when the bureau shall cease to exist, such of the late so-called Confederate States as shall have made provision for education, without regard to color, should have the balance of money remaining on hand, to !>«■ divided among them in proportion to their population." The vote followed soon after the remark- of Mr. Elliot, and the bill, as amended, passed the House of Representativ The following is the bill as it went to the President for his approval : "An A.ct to continue in force and to ameml 'An Act to establish a Bureau for the relief of Freedmen and Refugees,' and for other purj " B ■ ! I by th ■ H R ■I. That the act to establish a bureau for the relief of freedmen and r< approved March third, eighteen hundred and Bixty-five, shall continue in force tor the term of two years from and after the passage of this act. Sec. 2. And . That the supervision and care of bureau shall extend to all loyal refugees and freedmen, so far as the same 1 be necessary, to enable them, as speedily as practicable, to become Belf-supporting citizens of the United States, and to aid them in making the freedom conferred by proclamation of the commander-in-chief, by emanci- pation under the laws of States, and by constitutional amendment, availa- ble to them and beneficial to the republic. "Sec 3. .! That the President shall, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint two assistant commissioners, in addition to those authorized by the act to which this is an amendment, who shall give like bonds and receive the same annual salaries provided in said act; and each of the assistant commissioners of the bureau shall have charge of one district containing such refugees or freedmen, \>> be assigned him by the commissioner, with the approval of the President And the commissioner shall, under the direction of the President, and so far as the same shall he. in his judgment, necessary for the efficient and economical administrati f the affairs of the bureau, appoint such agents, clerks, and sistants as may be required for the proper conduct of the bureau. Mili- tary 1 men may be detailed for service and assigned I i duty under this nd the President may, it", in his judgment, safe and judicious so to do. detail from the army all the officers and agents of this bureau; but no officer so assigned shall have increase of pay or allowanc< - Bach agent w clerk, not hi authorized by law eing a military THE FREE DM EM. 299 officer, shall have an annual salary of not less than five hundred dollars nor more than twelve hundred dollars, according to the service required of him. And it shall lie the duty of the commissioner, when it can he don.- < sil- ently with public interest, to appoint, as assistant commissioners, agents, and clerks, such men as have proved their loyalty by faithful service in the armies of the Union during the rebellion. And all persons appointed to service under this act. and the act to which this is an amendment, shall be so far deemed in the military service of the United States as to be under the military jurisdiction and entitled to the military protection of the Gov- ernment while in discharge of the duties of their office. "Sbo. 4. And hi' it further enacted, That officers of the Veteran Reserve Corps or of the volunteer service, now on duty in the Freedmen's Bureau as assistant commissioner-, agents, medical officers, or in other capacities, whose regiments or corps have been or may hereafter he mustered out of service, may be retained upon such duty as officers of said bureau, with the same compensation as is now provided by law for their respective grades; and the Secretary of War shall have power to fill vacancies until other of- ficers can be detailed in their places without detriment to the public service. "Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That the second section of the act to which this i-, an amendment shall be deemed to authorize the Secretary of War to issue such medical stores or other supplies, and transportation, and afford such medical or other aid as may be needful for the purposes named in said section: Provided, That no person shall be deemed 'destitute,' 'suf- fering,' or 'dependent upon the Government for support,' within the mean- ing of this act, who is aide to find employment, and could, by proper industry or exertion, avoid such destitution, suffering, or dependence. "Sec. 6. Whereas, by the provisions of an act approved February sixth, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, entitled 'An act to amend an act entitled "An act for the collection of direct taxes in insurrectionary districts within the United Stat.-, and for other purposes," approved June seventh, eighteen hundred and sixty-two,' certain lands in the parishes of Saint Helena and Saint Luke, South Carolina, were bid in by the United States at public tax sale<. and, by the limitation of said act, the time of redemption of said lands has expired; and whereas, in accordance with instructions issued by President Lincoln on the sixteenth day of September, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, to the United States direct tax commissioners lor South Caro- lina, certain lands hid in by the United States in the parish of Saint Sel- ena, in said State, were in part sold by the said tax commissioners to 'heads of families of the African race,' in parcels of not more than twenty acres to each purchaser; ami whereas, under the said instructions, the said tax commissioners did also set apart as 'school-farms' certain parcels of land in said parish, numbered in their plats from one to sixty-three inclusive, mak- ing an aggregate of six thousand acres, more or less: Therefore, be it further That the sales made to 'heads of families of the African race,' un- der the instructions of President Lincoln to the United States direct tax; commissioners for South Carolina, of date of September sixteenth, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, arc hereby confirmed and established; ami all leases which have 1 D made to such of families' by said direct Q 00 TIIE THIRD Wl.VT 11 CONGRE& tax commissioners shall be changed into certificates of Bale in :tll cases wherein the lease provides for such substitution; and all the I >w re- maining unsold, which come within the same designation, being Band acres, more or less, shall be disposed of according to Baid instruct "Sec. 7. .1 ■•. That all other lands bid in by the United States al tax Bales being thirty-eight thousand acres, mon and now in the bands of the Baid tax commissioners as the pr f the United States, in the parishes of Saint Helena and Saint Lul opting the 'school-farms,' as specified in the preceding section, and bo much as may essary for military and naval purposes at Hilton Head, Bay Point, and Land s End, and excepting ahjo the city of Port Royal, on Saint Helena island, and the town of Beaufort, shall be disposed of in i twen d ■ dollar and fifty rent- per acre, to • nd to such only, as have ar.iiiir.Ml and are now occupying lands under and a. ably to the provisions of General Sherman's special field order, dated a ; vannah, Georgia, January sixteenth, eighteen hundred and Bixty-fivej and the remaining lands, it any. shall be disposed of, in like manner, t i Buch per- sons as had acquired lands agreeably to the Baid order of General Sherman, but who have been disp I by the restoration of the saj rmer owners: /' That the lands Bold in compliance with the provit of this and the preceding section -hall not be alienate. 1 by their purcb - s within six years from and alter the passage of this act "Sec. 8. And bt it fw . That the 'school-farms' in the p of Saint Helena, South Carolina, shall be Bold, subject to any leases of the same, by the sai.l tax commissioners, at public auction, on or befi laj of January, eighteen hundred and Bixty-seven, at no*, less than ten dollars per acre; and the lots in the city of Port Royal, as laid down by the Baid tax commissioners, and the lots and houses in th< of Beau- fort, which are still held in like manner, shall be sold at public auction; and the proc said -ales, alter paying expenses of the - and Bales, shall be invested in United States bonds, the interest of which shall be appropriated, under the direction of the commissioner, to the Bupporl of Bchools, without distinction of color or rare, on the islands in the parishes of Saint Helena and Saint Luke. "Seo. 9. And ■ '. That the assistant commissioners for South Carolina and Georgia are hereby authorized to examine the claims to lands in their respective States which are claimed under I General Sherman's special field order, and to give each person havii valid claim a warrant upon the direct tax commissioners for South Caro- lina for twenty acres of land: and the said direct tax commise shall issue to every person, or i.> his or her heirs, but in no case to anj assigns, presenting such warrant, a lease of twenty acre- of land, as provided for en, for the term of six years; but, at any time thereafter, upon the payment of a sum n ling on.' dollar and lilt be per acre, the u holding su. h lease -ball be entitled to a certificate ><\' Bale ol tract of twenty a. -re- from the direct tax commissioner or Buch officer as ma\ be authorized to issue the same; but no warrant shall be held valid longer than two years after tie 1 issue of the same. THE FREEDM / /. \ 301 "Seo. 10. And be it further enacted, That the direel tax commissioners for South Carolina are hereby authorized and required, at the earliesl day prac- ticable, to survey the lands designated in section seven into lots of twenty acres each, with proper metes and bounds distinctly marked, so thai the sev- eral bracts shall be convenient in form, and, as near as practicable, have an average of fertility and woodland; and the expense of such surveys shall h.' paid from the proceeds of sales of said lands, or, if sooner required, out of any moneys received for other lands on these islands, sold by the United States for taxes, and now in the hands of the direct tax commissioners. "Sec. 11. And be it further enacted, That restoration of the lands now oc- cupied by persons under General Sherman's special field order, dated at Savannah, Georgia, January sixteenth, eighteen hundred and sixty-five, shall not be made until after the crops of the present year shall have he. mi gath- ered by the occupants of said lands, nor until a fair compensation shall have been made to them by the former owners of said lands, or their legal representatives, for all improvements or betterments erected or constructed thereon, and after due notice of the same being done shall have been given by the assistant commissioner. "Sec. 12. And be it further enacted,, That the commissioner shall have power to seize, hold, use, lease, or sell, all buildings and tenements, and any lands appertaining to the same, or otherwise, held under claim or title by the late so-called Confederate States, and any buildings or lands held in trust for the same by any person or persons, and to use the same or appro- priate the proceeds derived therefrom to the education of the freed people; and whenever the bureau shall cease to exist, such of the late so-called < Ion- federate States as shall have made provision for the education of their citi- zens, without distinction of color, shall receive the sum remaining unex- pended of such sales or rentals, which shall be distributed among said States for educational purposes in proportion to their population. "Sec. 13. And be it further enacted, That the commissioner of this bureau shall at all times cooperate with private benevolent associations of citizens in aid of freedmen, and with agents and teachers, duly accredited and ap- pointed by them, and shall hire or provide by lease buildings for purposes of education whenever such associations shall, without cost to the Govern- ment, provide suitable teachers and means of instruction; and he shall fur- nish protection as may be required for the safe conduct of such schools. "Sec. 14. And be it further enacted, That in every State or district where the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has been interrupted by the re- bellion, and until the same shall be fully restored, and in every State or dis- trict whose constitutional relations to the Government have been practically discontinued by the rebellion, and until such State shall have been restored in such relations, and shall be duly represented in the Congress of the United States, the right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and per- sonal property, and to have full and equal benefit of all laws and proc 1- ings concerning personal liberty, personal security, and the acquisition, enjoyment, and disposition of estate, real and personal, including the con- stitutional right to bear arms, shall be secured to and enjoyed by all the 30% THE THIRTY-NINTH COJ\ citizens of Bach State or dial I without ^r color, or previ- adition of Blavery. And whenever in either of Baid States or di-n ■', the ordinary course of judicial proc Iin_- has been interrupted by the rebellion, and until the -aim- shall be fully restored, and until Buch State shall bave been restored in its constitutional relations t«i th< I rament, i Bhall be duly represented in the Congress of the- United 3 i4 - the President, Bhall, through the commissioner and the offici lureau, and under such rules and regulations as the Pri - through die Secretary of War. Bhall prescribe, extend military protection and have military juris- diction over all cases and questions concerning the free enjoyment of Buch immunities and rights; and no penalty or punishment for any violation of law shall be imposed or permitted because of ra r color, or previous con- dition of slavery, other or greater than the penalty or punishment to which white persons may be liable by law for the like offense. But the jurisdic- tion conferred by this section upon the officers of the bureau Bhall not ex- ist in any State where the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has not been interrupted by the rebellion, and shall cease in every State when the courts of the State and the United States are not disturbed in the peace- able course of justice, and after Buch State shall be fully restore 1 in it- con- stitutional relations to the Government, and shall be duly represented in the Congress of the United States. "Sec. 15. And be it •', That the officers, agents, and employ- ees of this bureau, before entering upon the duties of their ol the oath prescribed in the first section of the act to which this is an amend- ment; and all acts or parts of acts inconsistent with the provisions of this act are hereby repealed. < )u the 16th of July the President returned the bill to the House of RepresentativeSj in which it originated, with his "ob- jections thereto" in writing. The following is THE VETO MESSAGE. /' House of Representative A careful examination of the bill passed by the two houses of Cong entitled 'An act to continue in force and to amend "An - iblish a bureau for the relief of freedmen and refu md for other purposes has convinced me that the legislation which it proposes would not be consistent with the welfare of the country, and that it falls clearly within the reasons assigned in my message of the 19th of February last, returning without my nature a Bimilar measure which originated in the Senate. It i- not my purpose to repeat the objections which I then urged They .. resh in your recollection, and ran be readily examined as a part of the records of one branch of the National Legislature. Adhering to tin- principles set forth in that message, 1 dom reaffirm them, and the line of policy therein indi- cated. "The only ground upon which this kind of legislation can be justified is that of the war-making power. The act of which this bill was intended as THE FREEDMEX. SOS amendatory was passed during the existent f the war. By its own pro- visions, it is to terminate within one year from the cessation of hostilities and the declaration of peace. It is therefore yet in existence, and it is likely that it will continue in force as long as the freedmen may require the benefit of its provisions. It will certainly remain in operation as a law until some months subsequent to tin' meeting of the next session of Con- - when, if experience shall make evident the necessity of additional legislation, the two houses will have ample time to mature and pass the requisite measures. In the mean time the questions arise, Why should this war measure lie continued beyond the period designated in the original act? and why, in time of peace, should military tribunals be created to continue until each 'State shall be fully restored in its constitutional relations to the Government, and shall lie duly represented in the. Congress of the United States'.'' It was manifest with respect to the act approved March 3, 1865, that prudence and wisdom alike required that jurisdiction over all cases concerning the free enjoyment of the immunities and rights of citizenship, a- well as the protection of person and property, should be conferred upon some tribunal in every State or district where the ordinary course of judicial proceeding was interrupted by the rebellion, and until the same should be fully restored. At that time, therefore, an urgent necessity existed for the passage of some such law. Now, however, war has substantially ceased; the ordinary course of judicial proceedings is no longer interrupted; the courts, both State and Federal, are in full, complete, and successful opera- tion, and through them every person, regardless of race or color, is entitled to and can be heard. The protection granted to the white citizen is al- ready- conferred by law upon the freedman ; strong and stringent guards, by- way of penalties and punishments, are thrown around his person and prop- erty, and it is believed that ample protection will be afforded him by due process of law, without resort to the dangerous expedient of 'military tri- bunals.' now that the war has been brought to a close. The necessity no longer existing for such tribunals, which had their origin in the war, grave objections to their continuance must present themselves to the minds of all reflecting and dispassionate men. Independently of the danger in represen- tative republics of conferring upon the military, in time of peace, extraor- dinary powers — so carefully guarded against by the patriots and statesmen of the earlier days of the republic, so frequently the ruin of governments founded upon the same free principle, and subversive of the rights and lib- erties of the citizen — the question of practical economy earnestly commends itself to the consideration of the law-making power. With an immense debt already burdening the incomes of the industrial and laboring classes, a due regard for their interests, so inseparably connected with the welfare of the country, should prompt us to rigid economy and retrenchment, and influence us to abstain from all legislation that would unnecessarily inci the public indebtedness. Tested by this rule of sound political wisdom, I can see no reason for the establishment of the 'military jurisdiction' con- ferred upon the officials of the bureau by the fourteenth section of the bill. "By the laws of the United States, and of the different States, competent courts, Federal and State, have been established, and are now in full prac 304 T]II: Timrrr-.Yi.vni cojvgi tical operation. Bj means of these civil tribunals ample redress is afl i for all private wr whether to the pri--.ni or to the property of the citi- zen without denial or unnecessary delay. They are open to all, without lor or race. I feel well assured that it will be better t" trust ights, privil< I immunities of the - t" tribunals - i stab- iished, and presided over by competent and impartial judges, bound by fixed rules of law and evidence, and where the rights of trial by jury is guaran- teed and secured, than to the caprice and judgment of an officer of the bureau, who, ir is possible, may be entirely iguorant of the principles that underlie the just administration of 1 1 » « - law. There is danger, too, that con- flict of jurisdiction will frequently arise between the civil courts and these military tribunals, each having concurrent jurisdiction over the person and the cause of action —the one judicature administered and controlled by civil law, the other by the military. How is the conflict to be settled, and who determine between tin- two tribunals when it arises? In my opinion it is wise to guard against such conflict by leaving to the courts and juries the protection of all civil rights and the redress of all civil grievances. "The fact can not be denied that since the actual cessation of hostili- ties many acts of violence — Buch, perhaps, as bad never been witnessed in their previous history — have occurred in the States involved in the recent lion. I believe, however, that public sentiment will sustain me in the assertion that such deeds of wrong are not confined to any particular State or section, but are manifested over the '■mire country — demonstrating that the cause that produced them does not depend upon any particular locality, but i* the result of the agitation and derangement incident to a long and bloody civil war. While the prevalence of such disorders must be greatly deplored, their occasional and temporary occurrence would seem to furnish no necessity for the extension of the bureau beyond the period fixed in the original act Besides the objections which 1 have thus briefly stated. 1 may upon your consideration the additional reason that recent developments in regard to the practical operations of the bureau, in many of the State-, show that in numerous instances it is used by its agents as a means of pro- moting their individual advantage, and that the f'reedmen are employed for the advancement of the personal ends of the officers, instead of their own improvement and welfar< — thus confirming the fears originally entertained by many that the continuation of such a bureau lor any unnecessary length of time would inevitably result in fraud, corruption, and oppression. "It is proper to state that in cases of this character investigations have I ii promptly ordered, and the offender punished, whenever his guilt has been satisfactorily established As another reason against the necessity of the legislation contemplated by this measure, reference may he had to the •Civil Rights Bill, now a law of the land, and which will 1m- faithfully exe- cuted as long a- it shall remain unrepealed, and may not be declared un- constitutional by court- of competent jurisdiction By that act. it is enacted "that all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are herehy declared to he citizens of the United States; and such eiti/.eii.-, of every race ami color, without regard to any previous con lition of sla\er\ or involuntary servitude, except as a pun- THE FREED MEN. 305 ishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right in every State and Territory of the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, to be parties, and give evidence, to in- herit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law. stat- ute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.' "By the provisions of the act full protection is afforded, through the dis- trict courts of the United States, to all persons injured, and whose privi- leges, as they are declared, are in any way impaired, and heavy penalties are denounced against the person who wilfully violates the law. I need not state that that law did not receive my approval, yet its remedies are far pref- erable to those proposed in the present bill — the one being civil and the other military. " By the sixth section of the bill herewith returned, certain proceedings by which the lands in the ' parishes of St. Helena and St. Luke, South Carolina,' were sold and bid in, and afterward disposed of by the tax com- missioners, are ratified and confirmed. By the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh sections, provisions by law are made for the disposal of the lands thus acquired to a particular class of citizens. While the quieting of titles is deemed very important and desirable, the discrimination made in the bill seems objectiouable, as does also the attempt to confer upon the commissioners judicial powers, by which citizens of the United States are to be deprived of their property in a mode contrary to that provision of the Constitution which declares that no person ' shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.' As a general principle, such legislation is unsafe, unwise, partial, and unconstitutional. It may deprive persons of their property who are equally deserving objects of the nation's bounty, as those whom, by this legislation. Congress seeks to ben- efit. The title to the land thus to be proportioned out to a favored class of citizens must depend upon the regularity of the tax sale under the law as it existed at the time of the sale, and no subsequent legislation can give validity to the rights thus acquired against the original claimants. The attention of Congress is therefore invited to a more mature consideration of the measures proposed in these sections of the bill. "In conclusion, T again urge upon Congress the danger of class legisla- tion, so well calculated to keep the public mind in a state of uncertain ex- pectation, disquiet, and restlessness, and to encourage interested hopes and fears that the National Government will continue to furnish to classes of citizens, in the several States, means for support and maintenance, regard- less of whether they pursue a life of indolence or labor, and regardless, also, of the constitutional limitations of the national authority in times of peace and tranquillity. "The bill is herewith returned to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, for its final action. "ANDREW JOHNSON. "Washington, D. C, July 16, I860." 20 306 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. As soon as the reading of thia document had been completed, a motion was passed thai it should be laii* the ssion, Mr. Stevens announced his opinion- on reconstruction with great boldness ami distinctness. At the same time, seeing himself much in advance of many of his party, and fearing 1 his opinion- might alarm the less resolute, h" declared: " I do not profess to speak their sentiments, nor must they 1»<' held respon- sible fir them." Mr. Stevens opened his speech with remarks on the condition of the rebel States. lie said: "The President a— limes, what no one doubts that the late rebel States have lost their constitutional relations to the Union, and are incapable of representation in Congress, except by permission of the Government. It matl hut little, with this admission, whether yon call them Stat of the Union, and now conquered territories, or assert that be- cause the Constitution forbids them to do what they did do, that thev are, therefore, only dead as to all national and political acti< and will remain so until the Government shall breathe into tie the breath of life anew and permit them to occupy their former position. In other words, that they are not out of the Union, but are only dead carcasses lying within the Union. In eitl case, it is very plain that it requires the action of Congress to enable them to form a State government and send Representatives to Congress. Nobody, 1 believe, pretends that with their old constitutions and frames of government they can be permitted to claim their old riffhts under the Constitution. Thev have torn their constitutional States into atoms, and built on their founda- tions fabrics of a totally different character. Dead men can I raise themselves. Dead State- can not restore their own exi I f as it was.' Whose especial duty is it to do it'.' In whom d< the Constitution place the power? Not in the judicial branch of Government, for it only adjudicates and does not prescribe laws. Not in the Executive, for he only executes and can not make laws. Not in the commander-in-chief of the armies, for he can only hold them under military rule until the sovereign legislative power of the conqueror shall give them law. "There is fortunately no difficulty in solving the question. There arc two provisions in the < institution, under one of which RECONSTR TJCTIOjY. S 09 the case must fall. The fourth article says : ' New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union.' In my judgment, this is the controlling provision in this case. Unless the law of nations is a dead letter, the late war between two acknowl- edged belligerents severed their original compacts, and broke all the ties that bound them together. The future condition of the conquered power depends on the will of the conqueror. They must come in as new States or remain as conquered provinces. Congress — the Senate and House of Representatives, with the concurrence of the President — is the only power that can act in the matter. But suppose, as some dreaming theorists imagine, that these States have never been out of the Union, but have only destroyed their State governments so as to be incapable of political action, then the fourth section of the fourth article ap- plies, which says, * The' United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.' Who is the United States? Not the judiciary; not the President; but the sovereign power of the people, exercised through their Repre- sentatives in Congress, with the concurrence of the Executive. It means the political Government — the concurrent action of both branches of Congress and the Executive. The separate action of each amounts to nothing either in admitting new States or guar- anteeing republican governments to lapsed or outlawed States. Whence springs the preposterous idea that either the President, or the Senate, or the House of Representatives, acting separately, can determine the right of States to send members or Senators to the Congress of the Union '? " Mr. Stevens then cited authorities to prove that "if the so- called Confederate States of America were an independent bellig- erent, and were so acknowledged by the United States and by Europe, or had assumed and maintained an attitude which en- titled them to be considered and treated as a belligerent, then, during such time, they were precisely in the condition of a fort ign nation with whom we were at war; nor need their independence as a nation be acknowledged by us to produce that effect." Having read from a number of authorities to support his posi- tion, Mr. Stevens continued: "After such clear and repeated decisions, it is something worse than ridiculous to hear men oi respectable standing attempting to nullity the law of nations, and declare the Supreme Court of the United Suites in error, because, 310 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. as the Constitution forbids it, the Si could not go out of the Union in fact. A respectable gentleman was lately reciting this argument, when he suddenly stopped and said: ' 1 * i « I you hear of that atrocious murder committed in our town".' A rebel <1< libe- rally murdered a Government official.' The person addressed said, '1 think yon arc mistaken. 1 ' How so? L saw it myself.' ' You are wrong : no murder was or could be committed, for the law forbids it." ••The theory thai the rebel State-, for four years a separate power and without representation in Congress, were all the time here in the Union, is a e,,od deal less ingenious ami respectable than tin' metaphysics of Berkeley, which proved that neither the world nor any human being was in existence. Ii' this theory were simply ridiculous it could he forgiven; hut ite effect i.-> deeply injurious to the stability of the nation. I can not doubt that the late Confederate States are out of tin 1 Union to all in- tents and purposes for which the conqueror may choose so to con- sider them. Mr. Steven- further maintained that the rebel State.- should be adjudged out of the Union on the ground of estoppel. "They are estopped," said he. " both by matter of record ami matter in pais. One of the first resolutions passed by seceded South Carolina in January, lstil, is as follow-: • Ttesol . That the separation of South Carolina from the Federal Union is final, and she has no further interest in the Constitution of the X " n i to< 1 States; and that the only appropriate negotiations between md the Federal Government are as to their mutual relations as fot Sta* Similar resolutions appear upon all their State and Confed- erate Government records. The speeches of their members of Congress, their generals and executive officers, and the answers of t in i i- < rovernment to our shameful suings lor peace, went upon the defiant ground that no terms would be offered or received !>t upon the prior acknowledgment of the entire and per- manent independence of the Confederate States. After this, to deny that we have a right to treat them a- a conquered bellig- erent, severed from the Union in fact, is not argument but mock- ery. Whether it be our interest to do so is the only question hereafter and more deliberately to lie considered. But suppose these powerful but now subdued belligerents, in- RECONSTRUCTION. 311 stead of being out of the Union, arc merely destroyed, and are now lying about, a dead corpse, or with animation so suspended as to be incapable of action, and wholly unable to heal them- selves by any unaided movements of their own. Then they may fall under the provision of the Constitution which says, "the United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a re- publican form of government." Under that power, can the judi- ciary, or the President, or the commander-in-chief of the army, or the Senate or House of Representatives, acting separately, restore them to life and readmit them into the Union? I insist that if each acted separately, though the action of each was iden- tical with all the others, it would amount to nothing. Nothing but the joint action of the two houses of Congress and the con- currence of the President could do it. If the Senate admitted their Senators, and the House their members, it would have no effect on the future action of Congress. The Fortieth Congress might reject both. Such is the ragged record of Congress for the last four years." He cited a decision of the Supreme Court to show that " it rests with Congress to decide what government is the established one in a State," and then remarked : " But Congress does not mean the Senate, or the House of Representatives, and President, all acting severally. Their joint action constitutes Congress. Hence a law of Congress must be passed before any new State can be admitted or any dead ones revived. Until then, no mem- ber can be lawfully admitted into either house. Hence, it ap- pears with how little knowledge of constitutional law each branch is urged to admit members separately from these destroyed States. The provision that "each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members," has not the most distant bearing on this question. Congress must create States and declare when they are entitled to be rep- resented. Then each house must judge whether the members presenting themselves from a recognized State possesses the requi- site qualifications of age, residence, and citizenship, and whether the election and returns are according to law. The houses sep- arately can judge of nothing else. "It is obvious from all this, that the first duty of Congress is to pass a law declaring the condition of these outside or defunct States, and providing proper civil government for them. Since 312 THE THIRTY-MNTR COJTGRE& the conquest, they have.been governed by martial law. Military rule is necessarily despotic, and ought not to exist longer than i- absolutely necessary. Ajs there arc no symptoms that the people of these provinces will be prepared to participate in constitutional government for some years, I know of no arrangement so proper for them as territorial government. There they can learn the principles of freedom and eat the fruit of foul rebellion. Under such governments, while electing members to the territorial l< s islatures, they will necessarily mingle with those to whom Con- gress shall extend the right of suffrage. In territories Congress fixes the qualifications of electors, and I know of no better place nor 1 utter occasion for the conquered rebels and the con- queror to practice justice to all men and accustom themselves to make and obey equal laws." Mr. Stevens proceeded to specify amendments to the Constitu- tion which should be made before the late rebel States '• would be capable of acting in the Union." The first of those amendments would be to change the basis-of representation among the Stal - from federal numbers to actual voters. Alter explaining the operation of* this amendment, he depicted the consequences of readmitting the Southern States without this guarantee. " With the basis unchanged," said he. " the eighty-three Southern mem- bers, with the Democrats that will in the best of times he elected from the North, will always give them the majority in Congress and in the Electoral College. They will, at the very first e! tion, take possession of the White Bouse and the hall.- of Con- gress. I need not depict the ruin that would follow. Assump- tion of the rebel debt or repudiation of the Federal debt would be sure to follow; tin- oppression of the freedmen, the reamend- menl of their State constitutions, and the reestablishment of slavery would be the inevitable result." Mr.Stevens thus set forth the importance of a proposed amend- ment to allow Congress to lay a duty on exports: " It- impor- tance can not well be overstated. It is very obvious that for many years the South will not pay much under our internal rev- enue laws. The only article on which we can raise any consid- erable amount is cotton. It will be grown largely at one,. With ten cents a pound exporl duty, it would be furnished cheaper to foreign market- than they could obtain it from any other part of the world. The late war has shown that. Two million bales RECONSTR UCTIOjY. 3 13 exported, at five hundred pounds to the bale, would yield $100,- 000,000. This seems to be the ehief revenue we shall ever derive from the South. Besides, it would be a protection to that amount to our domestic manufactures. Other proposed amendments — to make all laws uniform, to prohibit the assumption of the rebel debt — are of vital importance, and the only thing that can pre- vent the combined force- of copperheads and secessionists from legislating against the interests of the Union whenever they may obtain an accidental majority. "But this is not all that we ought to do before these inveterate rebels are invited to participate in our legislation. We have turned, or are about to turn, loose four million slaves, without a hut to shelter them or a cent in their pockets. The infernal laws of slavery have prevented them from acquiring an education, understanding the commonest laws of contract, or of managing the ordinary business of life. This Congress is bound to provide for them until they can take care of themselves. If we do not furnish them with homesteads, and hedge them around with pro- tective laws; if we leave them to the legislation of their late masters, we had better have left them in bondage. Their condi- tion would be worse than that of our prisoners at Andersonville. If we fail in this great duty now, when we have the power, we shall deserve and receive the execration of history and of all future ages. "Two things are of vital importance: 1. So to establish a principle that none of the rebel States shall be counted in any of the amendments of the Constitution until they are duly ad- mitted into the family of States by the law-making power of their conqueror. For more than six months the amendment of the Constitution abolishing slavery has been ratified by the Legisla- tures of three-fourths of the Slates that acted on its passage by Congress, and which had Legislatures, or which were States ca- pable of acting, or required to act, on the question. "I take no account of the aggregation of whitewashed rebels, who, without any legal authority, have assembled in the capitals of the late rebel State's and simulated legislative bodies. Nor do I regard with any respect the cunning by-play into which they deluded the Secretary of State by frequent telegraphic announce- ments that 'South Carolina had adopted the amendment/ 'Ala- bama has adopted the amendment, being the twenty-seventh State,' 314 THE THIRTY-NINTH coXCHK etc. This was intended to delude the people and accustom Con- gress to hear repeated the names of these extinct States as if they were alive, when, in truth, they have now no more existence than the revolted cities of Latium, two-thirds of win — ' people were colonized, and their property confiscated, and their rights of citi- zenship withdrawn by conquering and avenging Rome." A second thing of vital importance to the stability of this re- public, Mr. Stevens asserted to be "that it should now be sol- emnly decided what power can revive, recreate, and reinstate th< provinces into the family of States, and invest them with the rights of American citizens. It is time that Congress should assert its sovereignty, and assume something of the dignity of a Roman senate, h is fortunate that the President invites Con- gress to take this manly attitude After statin-', with great frankness, in his aide message, his theory — which, however, is found to be impracticable, and which, \ believe, very few now consider tenable — he refers the whole matter to the judgment of ( Jongress. If ( longress should fail firmly and wisely to discharg that high duty, it is not the fault of the President." Mi-. Stevens closed his speech by setting the seal of reprobation upon a doctrine which i- becoming too fashionable, that "this a white man's Government." He uttered a severe rebuke to those who thus " mislead and miseducate the public mind." There were some Republicans in Congress who disagreed with Mr. Si, 'vens in his theory of the condition of the late rebel States, vet no one ventured immediately, to use a contemporary expression, "to take the Radical bull by the horns." At length, three day- afterward, Mr. Raymond, a- a represent- ative of the "Conservatives," ventured a reply. He thus set forth his theory as in opposition to that of Mr. Steven-: " 1 can uol be|i,. vr that these State- haw ever been out of the Union, or that they are now out of the Union. I can not believe that they ever have been, or arc now, in any sense ;i separate power. If they weic. sir, how and when did they become so"? They were oner Stale- of tlii- Union -that every one concedes; bound to the Union and made members of the Union by the Constitution of the United States. It'th.y ever went out of the Union, it was at some specific time and by soine specific act. Was it by the ordinance of secession? 1 think we all agree that an ordinance of secession passed by any State of this Union i- simply a nullity, RECONSTRUCTION. 315 because it encounters in its practical operation the Constitution of the United States, which is the supreme law of the land. It could have no legal, actual force or validity. It could not oper- ate to effect any actual change in the relations of the States adopt- ing it to the National Government, still less to accomplish the removal of that State from the sovereign jurisdiction of the Con- stitution of the United States. " Well, sir, did the resolutions of these States, the declarations of their officials, the speeches of members of their Legislatures, or the utterances of their press accomplish the result? Certainly not. They could not possibly work any change whatever in the relations of these States to the General Government. All their ordinances and all their resolutions were simply declarations of a purpose to secede. Their secession, if it ever took place, certainly could not date from the time when their intention to secede was first announced. After declaring that intention, they proceeded to carry it into effect. How'? By war. By sustaining their purpose by arms against the force which the United States brought to bear against it. Did they sustain it? Were their arms victorious? If they were, then their secession was an ac- complished fact ; if not, it was nothing more than an abortive attempt, a purpose unfulfilled. This, then, is simply a question of fact, and we all know what the fact is. They did not succeed. They failed to maintain their ground by force of arms ; in other words, they failed to secede. " But the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] insists that they did secede, and that this fact is not in the least affected by the other fact that the Constitution forbids secession. He says that the law forbids murder, but that murders are, nevertheless, committed. But there is no analogy between the two cases. If secession had been accomplished ; if these States had gone out, and overcome the armies that tried to prevent their going out, then the prohibition of the Constitution could not have altered the fiict. In the case of murder the man is killed, and murder is thus com- mitted in spite of the law. The fact of killing is essential to the committal of the crime, and the fact of going out is essential to secession. But in this case there was no such fact. I think L need not argue any further the position that the rebel States have never for one moment, by any ordinances of secession, or by any successful war, carried themselves beyond the rightful jurisdiction 316 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS of tin- Constitution of the United States. They have biterra] for a time the practical enforcement and exercise of that jurisdic- tion; they rendered it impossible for a time for this Government t.i enforce obedience to its laws ; but there has never been an hour when this Government, or this Congress, or this House, or the gentleman from Pennsylvania himself, ever conceded that those State- were beyond the jurisdiction of the Constitution and laws of the I baited States." Referring to the citation of authorities made by Mr. Stevens, Mr. Raymond maintained that they did not lend the"slig] countenance to the inference which was drawn from th< In reply to the theory maintained by Mr. Stevens, that Sta forfeited their State existence by the fact of rebellion, Mr. Ray- mond said: "I do not see how there can be any such forfeiture involved or implied. The individual citizens of those States went into the rebellion. They thereby incurred certain penalties under the laws and < institution of the United State*. What the States did was to endeavor to interpose their Suite authority between the individual- in rebellion and the Government of the United States, which assumed, and which would carry out the assumption, to declare those individuals traitors for their acts. The individuals in the States who were in rebellion, it seems to me, were the only parties who, under the Constitution and laws of the United State-, could incur the penalties of treason. I know of no law, 1 know of nothing in the Constitution of the United States, I know of nothing in any recognized or established code of international law, which can punish a State as a State for any ad it may perform. It is certain that our Constitution assumes nothing of the kind. It does not deal with States, ex- cept in one or two instances, such a- election- of members oi Congress and the election of electors of President and V President. "Indeed, the main feature which distinguishes the Union un- der the Constitution from the old Confederation is this: that, where;!- the old Confederation did deal with Stat.- directly, making requisitions upon them for supplies and relying upon them for the execution of its laws, the Constitution of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Uuion, made it.- laws binding on the individual citizens oi' the several Stat.-, whether living in one State or in another. Congress, as the legislative RECONSTRUCTION. 317 branch of this Government, enacts a law which shall he operative upon every individual within its jurisdiction. It is binding upon each individual citizen, and if he resists it by force, he is guilty of a crime, and is punished accordingly, any thing in the consti- tution or laws of his State to the contrary notwithstanding. But the States themselves are not touched by the laws of the United States or by the Constitution of the United States. A State can not be indicted; a State can not be tried; a State can not be hung for treason. The individuals in a State may be so tried and hung, but the State as an organization, as an organic mem- ber of the Union, still exists, whether its individual citizens com- mit treason or not." Mr. Raymond subsequently cited some of the consequences which he thought must follow the acceptance of the position as- sumed by Mr. Stevens. " If," said Mr. Raymond, " as he asserts, we have been waging war with an independent Power, with a separate nation, I can not see how we can talk of treason in con- nection with our recent conflict, or demand the execution of Davis or any body else as a traitor. Certainly if we were at war with any other foreign Power, we should not talk of the treason of those who were opposed to us in the field. If we were engaged in a war with France, and should take as prisoner the Emperor Napoleon, certainly we could not talk of him as a traitor or as liable to execution. I think that by adopting any such assump- tion as that of the honorable gentleman, Ave surrender the whole idea of treason and the punishment of traitors. I think, more- over, that we accept, virtually and practically, the doctrine of State sovereignty, the right of a State to withdraw from the Union, and to break up the Union at its own will and pleasure. " Another of the consequences of this doctrine, as it seems to me, would be our inability to talk of loyal men in the South. Loyal to what? Loyal to a foreign, independent Power, as the United States would become under those circumstances? Cer- tainly not. Simply disloyal to their own Government, and de- serters, or whatever you may choose to call them, from that to which they would owe allegiance, to a foreign and independent State. "Now, there is another consequence of the doctrine which I shall not dwell upon, but simply suggest. If that confederacy was an independent Power, a separate nation, it had the right to 318 THE 'THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS contract debts; and we, having overthrown and conquered that independent Power, according to the theory of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, would become the successors, the inheritors, of it- debts and assets, and we must pay them." Mr. Raymond set forth his theory of the conditions and rela- tion, of the late rebel States in the following language: "I cer- tainly do not think these States an- to be deall with by as as provinces —as simply so much territory — held to us by no other ties than those of conquest. I think we arc to deal with them as Siah- having State governments, Mill subject to the jurisdiction of the Constitution and law- of the United State-, -till under the constitutional control of the National Government; and that in our dealings with them we are to he guided and governed, not simply by our sovereign will and pleasure as couquerors, hut by the restrictions and limitations of the Constitution of the United States, precisely as we are restrained and limited in our dealings with all other States of the American Union." In answer to the question how we are to deal with the late rebel States, Mr. Raymond remarked: "I think we have a full and perfect right to require certain conditions in the nature of guarantees for the future, and that right rests, primarily and technically, on the surrender we may and must require at their hands. The rebellion has been defeated. A defeat always im- plies a surrender, and, in a political sense, a surrender implies more than the transfer of the arms u.-ed on the field of battle. It implies, in the case of civil war, a surrender of the principles and doctrines, of all the weapons and agencies, by which the war has been carried on. The military surrender was made on the field of battle, to our generals, as the agents and representatives of the Commander-in-chief of the armies of the United Stat--. •• N..w, there must he at the .aid of the war, a similar surrender on the political field of controversy. Thai surrender is due as an act of justice from the defeated party to the victorious party. It is due, al80, and we have a right to exact it. as a guarantee for the future. Why do we demand the sum aider of their arms by the vanquished in every battle? We do it that they may not renew the contest. Why do we Beek] in this and all similar cases, a surrender of the principle- for which they fought? It is that they may never again he made the basis of controversy and rebellion against the Government of the United States. RECONSTRUCTION. 319 "Now, what are those principles which should be thus sur- rendered? The principle of State sovereignty is one of them. It was the corner-stone of the rebellion — at once its animating: spirit and its fundamental basis. Deeply ingrained as it was in the Southern heart, it must be surrendered. The ordinances in which it was embodied must not only be repealed, the principle itself must be abandoned, and the ordinances, so far as this war is concerned, be declared null and void, and that declaration must be embodied in their fundamental constitutions." The speech Mas here interrupted by Mr. Bingham, who insisted that the adoption of the principle in the State constitutions would not be sufficient guarantee. Adoption in the Constitution of the United States was essential to its permanent effective forte. Mr. Raymond thought the Constitution of the United States as plain as possible in its declaration against the doctrine of State sovereignty. If any more explicit denial could be got into the Constitution, he would favor it. " Another thing," said Mr. Raymond, " to be surrendered by the defeated rebellion is the obligation to pay the rebel war debt. We have the right to require this repudiation of their debt, because the money represented by that debt was one of the weapons with which they carried on the war against the Govern- ment of the United States. " There is another thing which we have the right to require, and that is the prohibition of slavery. We have the right to re- quire them to do this, not only in their State constitutions, but in the Constitution of the United States. And we have required it, and it has been conceded. They have also conceded that Congro-- may make such laws as may be requisite to carry that prohibition into effect, which includes such legislation as may be required to secure for them protection of their civil and personal rights — their ' right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' " Mr. Spaulding having inquired whether there was any limit to the right to make these requisitions, except the good judgment of Congress, Mr. Raymond answered : " My impression is that these requisitions are. made as a part of the terms of surrender which we have a right to demand at the hands of the defeated insurgents, and that it belongs, therefore, to the President, as Commander-in-chief of the army and navy of 19 820 the thii:ty-xixti[ coxt;i;i: tho United States, to make them, and to fix the limit as bo what they shall embrace." By way of setting forth the opinions of the " Radicals" in a^ strong a Light as possible, Mr. Raymond -aid: " It may he for the welfare <>t' this nation that we .-hall cherish toward the millions of our people lately in rebellion feelings of hatred and distrust ; that we shall nurse the bitterness their infamous treason has naturally and justly engendered, and make that the basis of our future dealings with them. Possibly we may best teach them the lessons of liberty, by visting upon them the worst ex< ;' des- potism. Possibly they may best Learn to practice justice toward other-, t<> admire and emulate our republican institution.-, by suf- fering at our hands the absolute rule we denounce in others. It may he best for us and for them that we discard, in all our deal- ings with them, all the obligations and requirements of the Con- stitution, and assert as the only law for them the unrestrained will of conquerors and masters." In contrast with this, he placed what he supposed to be a dif- ferent policy : ' l I would exact from them, or impose upon them through the constitutional Legislation of Congress, and by enlarg- ing and extending, if necessary, the scope and power- of" the l'Yeed men's Bureau, proper care and protection for the help] and friendless freedmen, so lately their slaves. I would exercise a rigid scrutiny into the character and loyalty of the men whom i hey may send to Congress, before 1 allowed them to participate in the high prerogative of Legislating for the nation. But I would seek to allay rather than stimulate the animosities and hatred, however just they may he, to which the war has given rise. Rut for our own sake as well as for theirs, I would not visit upon them a policy of confiscation which has been discarded in the policy and practical conduct of every civilized nation on the face of the globe." Mr. Raymond having closed his speech, it was moved that the Committee of the Whole should rise, but the motion was with- drawn to allow Mr. Jenckes, of Rhode Island, five minutes for reply. He said: "The gentleman states, and properly, that every act or ordinance of secession was a nullity. Undoubtedly it was. Upon that question of law we do not disagree. But he seems to me to overlook entirely what was the state of facts from the time of the passage of the ordinances of secession until the RECONSTRUCTION. 321 time of the surrender of Lee's army. During that period what were the relations which all that territory — I will not use the term States, but all that territory — between the Potomac and the Rio Grande sustained to the Government of the United States? Who could see States there for any purpose for which legislation was required by the Constitution of the United States? "At the time of the passage of the ordinance of secession, States were organized there, in existence, in action, known to the Constitution and the constitutional authorities under it. But were they loyal ? Did they obey the Constitution of the United States ? This is a question that needs no answer other than that which is conveyed to every mind by the recollection of the last four years of war, with their expenditure of treasure and blood. Those States were not destroyed, in the technical language of the law — they simply died out. As their Governors passed out of office, as the terms of their legislatures expired, who knew those facts? None but themselves. And yet, behind this grand cordon of armies, stretching from here to the Rio Grande, there were States in existence, organized as States, but States in rebellion, occupying the territory belonging to the people of the United States. They were not acting in concert with this Government, but against it. That, Mr. Chairman, is a matter of fact. My eyes are not dimmed or blinded by the parchment upon which constitutions or laws are written. I, like the men who carried the bayonets and planted the cannon, recognize the fact that was before us during all this time. There was a state of rebellion. There were in that part of our territory no States known to our Constitution or the laws that we enact, or the officers whose duty it is to enforce those laws. " I recognize, too, the next fact. Bear in mind, I am simply stating now what I conceive to be the facts. The question as to what may be the law can be reserved for discussion on another occasion. I recognize fully the duties of the Executive. And it was the duty of the President of the United States, as the head of the civil and military power of this great republic — not l em- pire;' God forbid that this country should ever be so designated with applause or even with toleration — to beat down armed oppo- sition to it, whether it came from a foreign power or from domes- tic insurrection. That was the duty of the President, and he recognized it; and it was not the duty of any one in this Con- 21 TEE THI11T) -NINTH < 'ONG E /> R rainsay it. It was written on the face of the Constitution that the President was to Bee that the laws should be faithfully executed, and the power of tin- republic maintained, and he did so. "The next fad — the feci which -••(•in- to me to be the one most pertinent for consideration uow — is that the military power which was opposed to this Government has been destroyed. It was the duty of the Executive to see that this was done, and to report to the Congress of the United States that it has been done. But whal then? Then there comes the third question of feet, inti- mately connected with the last, and hardly separable from it. he- cause it requires the immediate action of the Executive and of Congress. All the power that existed in the shape of Confede- rated State- behind rebel bayonets and fortifications has fallen to the earth. The territory which these States in rebellion occu- pied was the property of the people of the United States, and never could be taken from us. I hold it to be a question of pub- lic law, worthy of consideration by the representatives of the American people, by the President and the Administration gene- rally, to ascertain what existed in the shape of civil constitutions and laws behind the military government that has been over- thrown. I hesitate not to say, here or elsewhere, that the Exec- utive of this Government has done his duty in this matter. All conquering nations, when they overcome a rebellious people by overthrowing their military power, look, as did the Government of Great Britain when it had overcome the mutiny in India, to see what government of a civil kind has existed or may exist from custom anion- the people who are conquered. 1 see no reason in this view to discriminate between the argument of the gentleman from Pennsylvania and the argument of the gentle- man from New York. It seems to me, that it' they will look at the particular questions which are now before us, and which require our action, the differences would be in terms and not in substance." The people of the predominant party generally acquiesced in the opinion of Mr. Jenckes, as expressed in the conclusion of his remarks as above presented. They conceived that the difference between the various view- of the whole question was " one of de- tails and not of essence." The question of reconstruction was purely practical. All shade- of opinion in the Republican party RECONSTRUCTION. 323 blended in this : that the States in question were not to be restored until satisfactory pledges were given to the United States. All speculation or attempt at argument in reference to their abstract condition was consequently superfluous — "a pernicious abstrac- tion/' in the language of Mr. Lincoln. If some were not prepared to accept the deductions of Mr. Ste- vens, yet accepting the logic of Mr. Raymond, they would be carried almost as far. The latter held that the citizens of those States were defeated insurgents who must submit to any condi- tions of surrender imposed by the victorious commander. Certain concessions could be rightfully demanded as parts of their sur- render and conditions of their restoration. Their acquiescence had been required in a constitutional amendment affecting the great social and industrial interests of Southern society. After this none could deny the right, whatever might be the expediency, of requiring their assent to other amendments bearing upon the political structure of the Southern States. Some of the predominant party were willing to stop short in their demands upon the rebel States with requiring acceptance of the emancipation amendment, repudiation of the rebel debt, legal protection of freedmen, and revocation of the ordinances of seces- sion. The majority, however, were disposed to go still further, and demand other conditions and guarantees which should be- come a part of the fundamental law of the land. This was the practical work of reconstruction for which the Joint Committee of Fifteen was preparing the way, and upon which Congress was soon to enter. 324 TJIE THIRTY- A I. VI 1 T COXGRES& CHAPTER XIV. THE BASIS OF REPRESENTATION— IN THE HOI First work of the Joint Committee — The joint resolution proposing a INSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT — Mr. STEVENS' REASONS FOR SPEEDY ACTION — Protracted discussion commenced — Objections to the bill by Mb Kogers — Defense by Mr. Conkxing— Two other modes — How ato MIGHT EVADE THE LAW NOT A FINALITY WISCONSIN AND SoUTB I !AB0- L1NA — Amendment for Female Suffrage proposed — Oeth on Indiana and Massachusetts — Obscuration of the sun — More Radical remedy desired — A Kentuckiae gratified— Citations from the Census — Pre- mium for Treason— White Slaves — Power to amend well-nigh ex- hausted — Objections to the Suffrage Basis — " Race" and 'Color bigcous — Condition of the Question — Recommitted — Final passage. ALTHOUGH the Joint Committee of Fifteen were assiduous in their attention to the work assigned them, it was not until the 22d of January, 1866, that they were ready to make a partial report and recommend a practical measure for the consideration of Congress. On that day Mr. Fessenden, of the Senate, and Mr. Steven-, of the House of Representatives, brought before those bodies re- spectively a partial report from the committee, recommending the passage of the following joint resolution: /.' wived by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Un i I States of in Congress assembled, (two-thirds of both houses concurring,) 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 the said Legislatures, shall be valid as part of said Con- stitution, namely : Akiui.k — . Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may !><• inoluded within this Union acoording to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed: Provided, Thai whenever the elective franchise shall be denied ox abridged in any State on account of race or color, ull persons of such race or color shall be excluded from the basis of representation BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 325 In the Senate this subject was laid over, ami was not reached for several days, as the Freedmen's Bureau Bill was then under discussion. The subject was pressed upon the attention of the House for immediate action. Mr. Stevens had no intention to make a speech, since the question had been under consideration by every member for the last six weeks. He remarked, -however: " There are twenty-two States whose Legislatures are now in session, some of which will adjourn within two or three weeks. It is very de- sirable, if this amendment is to be adopted, that it should go forth to be acted upon by the Legislatmes now in session. It proposes to change the present basis of representation to a representation upon all persons, with the proviso that wherever any State excludes a particular class of persons from the elective franchise, that State to that extent shall not be entitled to be represented in Congress. It does not deny to the States the right to regulate the elective franchise as they please; but it does say to a State, 'If you ex- clude from the right of suffrage Frenchmen, Irishmen, or any par- ticular class of people, none of that class of persons shall be counted in fixing your representation in this House. You may allow them to vote or not, as you please; but if you do allow them to vote, they will be counted and represented here ; while if you do not allow them to vote, no one shall be authorized to represent them here; they shall be excluded from the basis of representation.' " As indicative of the apparent harmony of sentiments prevailing on the question, Mr. Wilson said that the Committee on the Judiciary had determined to report a proposition substantially identical with that offered by Mr. Stevens. It was deemed important to have the joint resolution passed as soon as possible, that it might go before the State Legislatures then in session for their ratification before their adjournment. The member who had the measure in charge desired, after one or two speeches on either side, to have the question put to vote, and have the resolution passed before the sun went down. Such action, however, seemed to the House too hasty, and a discussion of the measure was entered upon, which ran through many days. Mr. Rogers, a member of the committee, oifered a minority report, and addressed the House in opposition to the proposed amendment of the Constitution. He thus presented his view of THE THIRT1 '-, \ 7. \ 77/ COJ\ GR E& - the object of the measure proposed: " I* appears to have in its body, in its soul, and in its life only one great object and aim; that is, to debase and degrade the white race, and to place upon a higher footing than the white men are placed, under the Con- stitution, this African race. It is a proposition to change the organic law of the land with regard to one of the fundamental principles which was laid down by our fathers at the formation of the Constitution as an axiom of civil and political liberty, that taxation and representation should always go I gether. Ii' gentle- men will examine this proposed amendment of the Constitution, they will see that it is in violation of that great doctrine which proclaimed by the fathers of the republic when they enun- ciated the Declaration uf Independence, and protested against the tyranny and despotism of England, because she attempted to tax the people of the colonies without allowing them representa- tion in the councils of the kingdom. The amendment now under consideration proposes the very same identical thing that the Parliament of England proposed when it attempted to inflict upon the American colonies taxation without allowing the people of the colonic- to have representatives in the Parliament of E _ land to represent them upon the question whether they should be taxed by the mother country or not. The first objection 1 have to the passage of this joint resolution is, that it is violative of the main principle upon which the Revo- lutionary War was conducted, and which induced our father.- to r the harbors of Boston and New York and throw the tea into the water. Because the British people attempted to inflict taxation upon them with regard to that tea, and refused to allow them representation in the Parliament of England, our fathers rebelled against their mother country. What has come over the fortunes and happiness of the people of this country that the great principle of the Constitution should now be violated, that principle for which our fathers spilt their blood to sustain, the great axiom of American liberty, that taxation never should be I upon a people unless that people have a corresponding representation? If this amendment to the Constitution should be carried into effect, it will prevent any Stale, North, or South, from allowing qualified suffrage to it- colored population, except upon forfeiture of representation ; and if qualified suffrage should be allowed to the colored population of any State in this Union, BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 327 on account of race of color, and but one single negro should be deprived of his vote by failure to meet the requirements of the qualification imposed, that State would be denied representation for the whole of that colored population — men, women, and children. " More than that : this bill attempts, in an indirect manner, to have passed upon, by the Legislatures of the different States, a question which the party in power dare not boldly and openly meet before the people of this country, because there can be but one object lying at the foundation of this bill — an object which has been explained and expatiated upon in this House — and that object, as I have said, is, through the Federal power, to force the States to adopt unqualified negro suffrage, by holding over them the penalty of being deprived of representation according to population. "But I object to this joint resolution upon another ground — upon the same ground that I objected to the passage of the Negro Suffrage Bill for the District of Columbia — without con- sulting the people. It has been said in this country that all power emanates from the people. And I say that to submit this grave question to the consideration and decision of partisan Legislatures in the different States — Legislatures which were elected without any regard to this question — is violative of the great principles which lie at the foundations of the liberties of this country; that no organic law, affecting the whole people. should be passed before submitting it to the people for their rati- fication or rejection. Now this joint resolution proposes simply to submit this amendment for ratification to the Legislatures of the different States. The Legislatures are not the States; the Legislatures are not the people in their sovereign capacity; Leg- islatures are not the source from which all power emanates. But the people, the sacred /»<>ji!e, in the exercise of their sovereign power, either at the ballot-box or in conventions, are the only true and primer forum to which such grave and serious que>tions should be submitted. " I maintain that the Constitution of the United State-, as it now exists, is not as liberal toward the Southern States, now that slavery has been abolished, as it was before the abolition of slavery. Why. sir, in the days of the past, under our Constitu- tion, the Southern States have been allowed a representation for 328 THE THIIiTY-M.YTIl CONGRESS. a population thai was not classed as citizens <>r people; they were allowed a representation for people who had no political status in the State; persons who were not entitled even to exercise the right <•!' coming hit < > a court of civil justice as a plaintiff or defendant in the prosecution or defense of a -nit. " Now, after the raging tire- of war have swept from the domain of every State in the South the pernicious institution of slavery ; after the result has been that every slave has received his freedom; after the slaves have gained more by the success of this war than any other class of people in the United State-, white men, men who are the representatives of the white race, come here proposing to compel the States, on pain of being deprived of a portion of their representation, to allow all the negroes within their limits to vote, without regard to qualification or any thing else, while under the same provision the State may, by its organic law, impose qualifications and condition- upon the exercise of the right of suffrage by the white population. The proposed amend- ment to the Constitution undertakes to consolidate the power in the Federal Government. It throws out a menace to the States, and the inevitable result of the passage would be to induce every State in the Union to adopt unqualified negro suffrage, so as not to deprive them of the great and inestimable right of representa- tion for that class of population in the halls of the legislation of the United States." Mr. ( Jonkline, also a member of the Reconstruction ( Jommittee, made an argument in favor of the proposed amendment : " Eman- cipation vitalizes only natural rights, not political rights. En- franchisement alone carries with it political rights, and these emancipated millions arc no more enfranchised now than when they were .-laves. They never had political power. Their mas- ters bad a fraction of power as masters. But there are no masters now. There are no slaves now. The whole relation-hip in which the power originated and existed i- gone. Hoc- this fraction ..f power -till survive? If it does, what shall become of it'.' Where i- it to go? ,i We are told the blacks arc unlit to wield even a fraction of power, ami must not have it. That answers the whole question. 11" the answer he true, it i- the end of controversy. There is no place, logically, for this power t<> l:". save t" the blacks; if they arc unlit to haw it, the power would aot exist. It is a power BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 329 astray, without a rightful owner. It should be resumed by the whole nation at once. It should not exist; it dors not exist. This fractional power is extinct. "A moral earthquake has turned fractions into units, and units into ciphers. If a black man counts at all now, he counts five- fifths of a man, not three-fifths. Revolutions have no such frac- tions in their arithmetic; war and humanity join hands to blot them out. Four millions, therefore, and not three-fifths of four millions, are to be reckoned in here now, and all these four mill- ions are, and are to be, we are told, unfit for political existence. "Did the framers of the Constitution ever dream of this? Never, very clearly. Our fathers trusted to gradual and volun- tary emancipation, which would go hand in hand with education and enfranchisement. They never peered into the bloody epoch when four million fetters would be at once melted off in the fires of war. They never saw such a vision as we see. Four millions, each a Caspar Hauser, long shut up in darkness, and suddenly led out into the full flash of noon, and each, we are told, too blind to walk, politically. No one foresaw such an event, and so no provision was made for it. The three-fifths rule gave the slaveholding States, over and above all their just representation, eighteen Representatives beside, by the enumeration of 1860. " The new situation will enable those States, when relationships are resumed, to claim twenty-eight Representatives beside their just proportion. Twenty-eight votes to be cast here and in the Electoral College for those held not fit to sit as jurors, not fit to testify in court, not fit to be plaintiff in a suit, not fit to approach the ballot-box ! Twenty-eight votes to be more or less controlled by those who once betrayed the Government, and for those so destitute, we are assured, of intelligent instinct as not to be fit for free agency ! "Shall all this be? Shall four million beings count four mill- ions, in managing the affairs of the nation, who are pronounced by their fellow-beings unfit to participate in administering gov- ernment in the States where they live, or in their counties, towns, or precincts; who are pronounced unworthy of the leasl ami most paltry part in local political affairs? Shall one hundred and twenty-seven thousand white people in New York casl but one vote in this House, and have none but one voice here, while the same number of white people in Mississippi have three votes and 10 THE THIRTT-.Vr.YTH CONGRESS. three voices? Shall the death of slavery add two-fifths to the entire power which slavery had when slavery was living? Shall one white man have as much share in the Government as three other white men merely because be lives where blacks outnumber whites two i te? Shall this inequality exist, and exist only in favor of those who without cause drenched the land with blood and covered it with mourning? Shall such be the reward of those who did the foulest and guiltiest act which crimsons the annals of recorded time? No, sir; not it' I can help it." Two oilier mode- of meeting the case had been considered by the committee, namely: First, To make the basis of representation in Congress and the Electoral College consist of sufficiently quali- fied voters alone; Second, To deprive the State- of the power to disqualify or discriminate politically on account of race or color. Alter presenting some reasons why the committee saw proper to recommend neither of these plans, Mr. Conkling further argued in favor of* the proposed amendment: "It contains but one con- dition, and that rests upon a principle already imbedded in the Constitution, and as old as tree government itself. That prin- ciple I affirmed in the beginning; namely, that representation does not belong to those who have not political existence, but to those who have. The object of the amendment is to enforce this truth. It therefore provides that whenever any State finds within its border- a race of beings unfit for political existent that race shall not be represented in the Federal Government. Every State will be left free to extend or withhold the elective franchise on such terms as it pleases, and this without losing any thing in representation if the terms are impartial as to all. Qualifications of voters may be required of any kind — qualifica- tions of intelligence, of property, or of any sort whatever, and yet no loss of representation shall thereby be suffered. But whenever in any Slate, and SO long as a race can be found which is 30 low, so bad, so ignorant, so stupid, that it is deemed neces- sary to exclude men from the righl to vote merely because they belong to that race, in that case the race shall likewise be ex- cluded from the SUm >'i' federal power to which the Slate is entitled, [fa race is so vile or worthless that to belong to it is alone cause of exclusion from political action, the race is not to be counted here in < longress." .Mr. Conkling maintained that the pending proposition com- BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 331 mended itself for many reasons. " First. It provides for repre- sentation coextensive with taxation. I say it provides for this; it does not certainly secure it, but it enables every State to secure it. It does not, therefore, as the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Rogers] insists, violate the rule that representation should go with taxation. If a race in any State is kept unfit to vote, and fit only to drudge, the wealth created by its work ought to be taxed. Those who profit by such a system, or such a condition of things, ought to be taxed for it. Let them build churches and school-houses, and found newspapers, as New York and other States have done, and educate their people till they are fit to vote. ' Fair play,' ' A fair day's wages for a fair day's work,' ( Live and let live' — these mottoes, if blazoned over the institutions of a State, will insure it against being cursed for any length of time with inhabitants so worthless that they are fit only for beasts of burden. I have said that the amendment provides for repre- sentation going hand in hand with taxation. That is its first feature. "Second. It brings into the basis both sexes and all ages, and so it counteracts and avoids, as far as possible, the casual and geographical inequalities of population. " Third. It puts every State on an equal footing in the require- ment prescribed. "Fourth. It leaves every State unfettered to enumerate all its people for representation or not, just as it pleases. Thus every State has the sole control, free from all interference, of its own interests and concerns. No other State, nor the Gene- ral Government, can molest the people of any State on the sub- ject, or even inquire into their acts or their reasons, but all the States have equal rights. If New York chooses to count her black population as political persons, she can do so. If she does not choose to do so, the matter is her own, and her rights can not be challenged. So of South Carolina. But South Carolina shall not say, 'True, we have less than three hundred thousand ''per- sons" in this State, politically speaking, yet we will have, in governing the country, the power of seven hundred thousand persons.' • "The amendment is common to all States and equal for all; its operation will, of course, be practically only in the South. No Northern State will lose by it, whether the Southern States THE THIR TT-J\ 7. V 77/ COJ\ '< i E ESS. extend suffrage to blacks or not. Even New York, in her great population, has so few blacks that she could exclude them all from enumeration and it would make no difference in her representation. It' the amendment is adopted, and suffrage re- mains confined as it is now, taking the census of I860 as the foundation of the calculation, and the number of Representatives as it then stood, the gains and Losses would be these: Wisconsin, Indiana, Qlinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Maine would gain one Representative each, and New York would gain three; Alabama, Kentucky. North Caro- lina, South Carolina, and Tennessee would each lose onej Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia would each lose two, and Mississippi would lose three." On the following day, January 23d, the proposed joint resolu- tion came ii]) in the regular order of business. Mr. Jenckes, of Rhode Island, feared that a construction might be put upon the bill which would be fatal to its efficiency for the purposes had iii view by its friends. He said: "It say- nothing about the qualification of property. Suppose this amendment is adopted by three-fourths of the States, and becomes a part of the fundamental law of the land, and after its adoption the Stale ,.f Smith ( larolina should reinstate the constitution of 1790, striking out the word ' white' and reestablishing the property qualification of fifty acres of land, or town lots, or the payment of a tax. there would then he no discrimination of color in the State .if South Carolina, yet the number of electors would not be enlarged five hundred, and the basis of representation would be exactly as it is, with the addition <>f two-fifths of the enfranchised freedmen. A Representative to this House would be reelected by the same voting constituency as now, perhaps with the addition of five hundred black men in the State. If it bears this construction, ami I believe it does, 1 shall vote against it. "If any of the State- should establish property qualification I upon lands, then the same oligarchy would be enthroned on tic- whole basis of representation, entitled to a larger number of Representatives than now in this House, and elected by a slightly enlarged number of qualified electors, giving power more firmly to that very aristocracy we have sought to overthrow." A number of queries were propounded, several amendments proposed, and a considerable desire for discussion expressed, until BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. S33 Mr. Stevens, much disappointed at the reception the measure met in the House, withdrew the demand for the previous question, and left the subject open for unlimited debate. Mr. Blaine, of Maine, addressed the House, detailing some ob- jections to the measure. He said: "While I shall vote for the proposition, I shall do so with some reluctance unless it is amended, and I do not regret, therefore, that the previous ques- tion was not sustained. I am egotistic enough to believe that the phraseology of the original resolution, as introduced by me, was better than that employed in the pending amendment. The phrase 'civil or political rights or privileges/ which I employed, is broader and more comprehensive than the term ' elective fran- chise,' for I fear, with the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. Farns- worth,] that under the latter phrase the most vicious evasions might be practiced. As that gentleman has well said, they might make suffrage depend on ownership of fifty acres of land, and then prohibit any negro holding real estate ; but no such mockery as this could be perpetrated under the provisions of the amendment as I originally submitted it." In relation to taxation, Mr. Blaine remarked : " Now, I contend that ordinary fair play — and certainly we can afford fair play where it does not cost any thing — calls for this, namely, that if we exclude them from the basis of representation they should be excluded from the basis of taxation. Ever since this Government was founded, taxation and representation have always gone hand in hand. If we shall exclude the principle in this amendment, we will be accused of a narrow, illiberal, mean-spirited, and money-grasping policy. More than that, we do not gain any thing by it, What kind of taxation is distributed according to representation? Direct taxation. Now, we do not have any di- rect taxation. There has been but twenty millions of direct tax- ation levied for the last fifty years. That tax was levied in 1861, and was not collected, but distributed among the States and held in the Treasury Department as an offset to the war claims of the States; so that, as a matter of fact, we are putting an offensive discrimination in this proposition and gaining nothing by it ex- cept obloquy." Mr. Donnelly, of Minnesota, said : " It follows, as a logical con- clusion, that if men have no voice in the National Government, other men should not sit in this hall pretending to represent 334 THE THIRTT-MXTH CONGRESS. them. And it is equally clear thai an oppr< — '1 nice should not lend power to their oppressors, to be used in their name and for their destruction. It is a mockery to say that a man's agent -hall be his enemy, and shall be appointed without his consent and againsl his desire, and by other enemies. •• In fact, I can not see how any Northern man can vote against this measure, unless he wishes to perpetuate an injustice to his section, because the effect of it will clearly be to increase the re- presentation of the Xorth and decrease that of the South; and this, too, npon a basis of undoubted justice. It mean- simply that those who do not take pari in the Government shall not be represented in the Government." Mr. Donnelly did not, however, regard the proposed amend- ment as "a grand panacea for all the ills that affect the nation." He would vote for the law, "not as a finality, but as a partial step as one of a series of necessary laws." Said he, "When we vote for this measure, it must be because we think it right and necessary, not that it may furnish us with an excuse for failing to do all other right and necessary thing- expected of us by the people. We must take direct, not sidelong measures. We must make laws not arguments. We must enforce, not induce. "To pass this law and then hope that South Carolina, moved by the hope of future power, would do justice to the negro, is ab- surd. She has 291,300 whites and 412,406 negroes. To pass such a law would be for the governing power to divest itself o\' the government and hand it over to a subject and despised caste, and that, too, for a faint hope of some future advantage that might never be realized under the most favorable circumstances, and certainly could never be realized by the aspiring class abdi- cating and relinquishing power. The same is true, more or less, of all the South. In Mississippi there are 353,901 whites and 136,631 negroes; and in all the State- the negro vote would be large enough to turn the scale against the disloyal party." Mr. Sloan, of Wisconsin, thus presented the practical workings of the "Constitution as it is:" "Look at the practical operation of the question we are discussing to-day. In the State I repre- sent there arc eight hundred thousand five white people loyal to the Constitution, who have done their whole duty in sustaining their Government during t In- terrible war. The bones of our soldiers are moldering in the Boil of every rebel State. They BASIS OF REPRESE. AT./ TION. 335 have stood around our flag in the deadly hail of every battle of the war. The State of Wisconsin has six Representatives on this floor. South Carolina ho,s three hundred thousand white in- habitants, disloyal, who have done all in their power to over- throw and destroy the Government, and yet, sir, under the Con- stitution as it now stands, the three hundred thousand disloyal white inhabitants of South Carolina will exercise as much polit- ical power in the Government as the eight hundred thousand loyal people of the State of Wisconsin." Mr. Sloan called attention to a proposition which he had sub- mitted to the preceding Congress, providing that the right of representation should be based upon the right of suffrage — upon the numbers allowed the right to vote in the respective States. In answer to a supposed objection to this plan, that "there might be some inequality in the representation of the respective States/' he said : " We all know that the young men of the old States go out in large numbers to settle in the new States and Territories, while the women and children do not emigrate to so great an extent, and hence there would be a larger number of voters in the new States in proportion to population than in the old. And yet this is a consideration which, in my judgment, ought not to weigh a hair with any member on this floor. It would be only a temporary inequality. In the rapidly increasing settlement and in the natural increase of population of our new States, that inequality would very soon be entirely swept away. I believe the difference to-day between Massachusetts and Wis- consin would be very slight, if any, so rapid has been the increase of our population and the settlement of our State. We are now proposing to adopt an amendment to the Constitution which we expect to stand for all time, and any temporary inequality which could continue but for a few years ought not to have any weight." Mr. Brooks, of New York, thought that Mr. Stevens would better " at the start have named what are States of this Union. The opinion of the honorable gentleman himself, that there are no States in this Union but those that are now represented upon this floor, I know full well; but he knows as well that the President of the United States recognizes thirty-six States of this Union, and that it is necessary to obtain the consent of three- fourths of those thirty-six States, which number it is not possible 33G THE Tllliny-XLXTU CONGRESS. to obtain. He knows very well that if his amendment should be adopted by the Legislatures of States enough, in his judgment, to carry it, before it oould pass the tribunal of the Executive cham- ber it would be obliged to receive the assent of twenty-seven States in order to become an amendment to the Constitution." Mr. Brooks, in the course of his speech, presented a petition from certain ladies of Xrw York, asking an amendment of the Constitution, prohibiting the several States from disfranchising any of their citizens on the ground of sex. He then proposed to amend the joint resolution by inserting the words "or - alt be represented, are false in principle. Such a measure may, perhaps, answer for a temporary expedient, but it will not do a- a fundamental rule to rabodied in the Constitution tor the people of this country to live by. I deny that a State has the right to disfranchise a majority or even a minority of it- citizens because of class or race. And I say that that provision of the Constitution which makes it the duty of the General Government to 'guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government ' ought to be taken into consideration by this Congress ami en- forced. Does a State that denies the elective franchise to one-half of its citizens possess a republican form of government '.' Where a large portion of the citizens of a State — the men who are re- quired to pay taxes ami perform military duty, to contribute their money and their strength in support of the Government — are denied the elective franchise, is that a republican form of gov- ernment? i say that it is a libel upon republicanism; it i- not a republican form of government ; it is neither republican in form nor in substance." Mr. Baker, of Illinois, although anxious to have an amend- ment of the Constitution "achieving the general purpose of sup- plying a more just basis of representation," saw points of objection to the proposition before the Souse, some of which had been raised by previous speakers, lie said: "1 am reluctant to indorse an amendment to the Constitution framed in this day of growing liberty, framed by the party of progress, intended to make rep- resentative power in this Government correspond with the quan- tum of political justice on which it is based, and yet which leaves any State in the Union perfectly free to narrow her suffrage to any extent she pleases, imposing proprietary and other disquali- fying tests, and -till strengthening her aristocratic power in the Government by the full count of her disfranchised people, pro- vided only she steers clear of a besl based on race or color," Mr. Jenckes was desirous of having a more just and eompre- hensive enactment than the one proposed: "In my judgment," said he, "justice requires that the qualification of electors for members of this House and for electors of President and Vice- President of the United States — in other words, for the two pop- BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. $41 ular branches of this great Govern meat — should be defined in the fundamental law. Upon this point let me quote the words of Madison, written in his mature years to a distinguished son of the republic seeking advice from him. lie says: 'The right of suffrage, the rule of apportioning representation, and the mod*; of appointing to and removing from office, are fundamentals in a free government, and ought to be fixed by the Constitution.' "Certainly, sir, it is less difficult, in a Congress composed of less than three hundred men, to agree to a proposition which will meet the views of the whole country on this question of suffrage than to adopt a proposition which, when submitted to and adopted by the requisite number of States, must be carried into effect by as many Legislatures as there are States, and in a different man- ner by each, and which, in being carried into effect, must be acted upon by as many thousands of men in State conventions and Leg- islatures as there are hundreds in this Congress. "There is no equality, and there can be no equality, in the proposed amendment. It seems to me, therefore, if we under- take to amend the fundamental law at all in this respect, we ought to agree upon what should be the qualification of voters for members of this House, embodying them in the proposed amendments to submit to the Legislatures of the States. Then there would be a definite proposition; and that, I believe, if it emanated from this House, would have substantial equality and justice — would have the elements of equality and uniformity, and be enforced without difficulty in every State of the Union." Referring to a mode which might be adopted for evading the legitimate results of the proposed amendment, Mr. Jenckes re- marked: "I was alluding to another one. Some of the Southern States, up to the breaking out of the war, had constitutions which prescribed a property qualification. Suppose this amendment were adopted, and the State of South Carolina chose to annul the Con- stitution recently proclaimed and to go back to that of 1790, and that the word 'white' should be stricken out of it, I desire to ask how many freedmen, how many persons of African descent, can be found who own in fee fifty acres of land or a town lot. or who have paid a tax of three shillings sterling. As far as I can ascertain from the statistics, there would not be, if that constitu- tion were restored and the word 'white' omitted, over five hun- dred additional qualified voters in that State. THE 77////y'i'-.\7.\77/ COKGREh "Ever since the adoption of the Constitution of L790 down to the time of firing on Fort Sumter, South Carolina was in prac- tical relation to this Government as a Statu of this Union. She had been considered as having a republican form of government, and that which we had guaranteed as such for many years we would be Ik. and to guarantee to her hereafter. Stronger than ever this oligarchy would be enthroned upon their old seat of pow< r, not upheld merely by slaves beneath it, but by the power of the General Government above and around it. She might make any of the discriminations which 1 havi d, of . f residence, of previous servitude, and of ignorance or poverty." Mr. Trimble, of Kentucky, was "exceedingly gratified at the dis- position manifested among the party in opposition here, by reason of their own differences of opinion, to allow an opportunity to us to present our objections to the measure now under consideration. This subject of amending the Constitution under which we have lived so long, so happily, and so prosperously, is one of great moment; and while I have some confidence in the ability and capacity of some of the friends on the opposite side to mala' a constitution, yet I prefer the Constitution as made by our fathi ! ty years ago. In my opinion, the amendment proposed is in violation of the reserved rights of the people of the States under that instru- ment. The object and purpose of this resolution is to enfran- chise a million men in this country whom no political party iu this country ever had the boldness to propose the enfranchisment of prior to the present -—ion of Congress. 1 remember that, in I860 and 1861, the party known in this country as the Union party took the -round, from one end of the country to the other, that neither Congress nor the people of the States had the power, under the Constitution of the United States, to interfere with very in the Stan- where it existed; much less, sir, (lid they claim the power nol only to destroy it, but to strike down the provisions of the Constitution that protected me and my constitu- ents in our right to our property. Sir, there was an amendment submitted then for the purpose of peace, for the purpose of restoring •r and quiet throughout the country. It met, at the time, my hearty support, and I regret, from the bottom of my heart, that the people, North, South, East, and West, did not agree to that prop- BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 3 J, 3 osition, and make it part and parcel of the Constitution. I refer to the amendment proposed in 1861, declaring that Congress should never thereafter interfere with the question of slavery in the State-. "Sir, it is a well-established principle that no one should be permitted to take advantage of his own wrong. If the party in power have succeeded in freeing the slaves of the South, ought they not, at least, to allow the Southern States to enjoy the in- creased representation to which, according to the rule established by the Constitution, they are now entitled"? Or, if the Northern States sincerely desire that the negroes of the South shall vote and shall be represented in Congress, let them transport thOse negroes to the North and take them under their guardianship; they are welcome to them. "I believe that the people of Kentucky, whom I in part rep- resent, and I have no doubt the people of the whole South, will submit in good faith to the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. While they may believe that the amendment is revolu- tionary and unjust, in violation of the rights of Kentucky and the South, still the Southern States, having in a way yielded up this question, for representation and peace, they will stand by the Constitution as amended." Finally, Mr. Trimble presented the following argument against the measure: "This proposition is a direct attack upon the Pres- ident of the United States; it is a direct attack upon the doc- trines and principles taught by that distinguished man now hold- ing the presidential chair. This amendment is in violation, in my judgment, of every principle that that man has held from his boyhood up to the present hour. Sir, the President of the United States does not believe that the Congress of the United States has the right, or that the people have the right, to strike down the inalienable right of the States to settle for themselves who shall be clothed with that high privilege — suffrage." The subject being resumed on the following day. .January 24th, Mr. Lawrence, of Ohio, addressed the House, premising his re- marks by a motion that the resolution and amendments be re- committed to the Committee on Reconstruction, "with instruc- tions to report an amendment to the Constitution which shall, first, apportion direct taxes among the State- according to prop- erty in each; and which shall, second, apportion Representatives 344 TJ/I ' : Tiiiirrr-.Yi.YTii congress. among the States on the basis of adult male voters who may be citizens of the United States." lie argued that "the rule which gave representation to tin ■ fifths of the -lave population was wrong in principle, and unjust in practical results. It was purely arbitrary, the result of com- promise, and noi of fixed political principles, or of any standard of abstract justice. W slavery was a jusl element of political strength, L know of no rule which could properly divide it into 'fractional quantities;' if it was not a just element of political strength, I know of no rule which could properly give it ' frac- tional jiower.' " The basis of representation was unjust in practical results, be- cause it gave to chattel slavery political power — a power accorded to no other species of property — thus making what the slave State- regarded as wealth an clement of political strength." After having given a statistical table showing how representa- tion was apportioned among the several States having free and .-lave population, Mr. Lawrence deduced the following facts: "New Hampshire, with a white population of 325,579, has but three Representatives, while Louisiana, with a white population of 357,629, had five. California, with a white population of 323,177, has but three Representatives, while Mississippi, with a similar population of 353,901, had five. In South Carolina 72,847 white persons had one Representative, while the ratio of representation is one for 127,000 persons. "Under this mode of apportionment, the late slave States had eighteen Representatives, by the census of L860, more than their jusl share, if based on free population. The whole political power of Ohio was counterbalanced by slave representation. It was equal to two-thirds of all the representation from New Eng- land. In South Carolina 1 1,569 votes carried as much political power as 25,400 in the free States." Freedom having been given to the -lave-, "the effect will be, so soon as lawful State Governments are created in the rebel State-, to largely increase their representation in Congress and the Electoral College. The -lave population, by the census of 1*60, was 3,950,531. Three-fifths of this, or 2,370,318, has heretofore entered into the basis of representation. Now. the additional 1,580,213 is to be added to that basis. This will give ten addi- tional Representatives to the late -lave State: — in all twenty-eight BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 345 more than their just proportion upon a basis excluding the late slaves. If this injustice can be tolerated and perpetuated, and the late rebel States shall soon be admitted to representation, they will enjoy as the reward of their perfidy and treason an in- creased political power. This will reward traitors with a liberal premium for treason." As to the proper time for amending the Constitution, .Mr. Lawrence said: "But if ever there could be a time for making fundamental changes in our organic law, and ingrafting on it irre- versible guarantees, that time is now. The events of the past four years demonstrate their necessity, and our security for the future imperatively demands them at our hands. The great events which have transpired, and the altered circumstances thai surround us, admonish us that we will be recreant to our trusts if we fail to inscribe justice on the Constitution, and fortify it against the encroachments of treason, so that it shall be eternal. One of the elements of our past misfortunes, and which gave power for evil to the enemies who assailed us in this temple, was unequal and unjust representation — political power wielded by a dominant class, augmented by concessions on behalf of a disfranchised and servile race, insultingly declared almost in the very citadel of na- tional justice as having no rights which a white man was bound to respect. By this amendment we strike down the iniquity of one class wielding political power for another, and arrogant be- cause in the exercise of unjust power." Maintaining that representation should be based upon suffrage, Mr. Lawrence said: "The reason which conclusively justifies it is, that a people declared by law, if in fact unprepared for suffrage, should not be represented as an element of power by those inter- ested in forever keeping them unprepared. But children never can be qualified and competent depositaries of political power, and, therefore, should not enter into the basis of representation. It never has been deemed necessary for the protection of females that they should be regarded as an element of political power, and hence they should not be an element of representation. If the necessity shall come, or if our sense of justice should so change as to enfranchise adult females, it will be time enough then to make them a basis of representation." Mr. Shellabarger, of Ohio, though having "fifteen times as much respect for the opinions of the Committee on Reconstruc- .6 THE THIRTY-MXTlf CONGRESS. tiun" as for his own, yet suggested the following as objections to their report : "1. It contemplates and provides for,and in that way, taken by itself, authorizes the States to wholly disfranchise entire races of it- people, and that, too, whether that race be white or black, Saxon, Celtic, or Caucasian, and without regard to their numb or proportion to the entire population of the State. "2. It is a declaration made in the Constitution of the only great and free republic in the world, that it is permissible and right to deny to the races of men all their political rights, ami that it i.- permissible to make them the hewer.- of wood and draw- ers of water, the mud-sills of society, provided only you do not ask to have these disfranchised rare-, represented in that Government, provided you wholly ignore them in the State. The moral teach- ing of the clause offends the live and just spirit of the age, vio- lates the foundation principles of our own Government, and is intrinsically wrong. ••:;. The elan-c, by being inserted into the Constitution, and being made the companion of its other clauses, thereby construes and gives new meanings to those other clauses; and it thus !■ down and spoils the free spirit and sense of the Constitution. Associated with that clause relating to the Stan- being 'republi- can/ it makes it read thus: "The United State- .-hall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government;' provided, however, that a government shall be deemed to be !<■- publican when whole races of its people are wholly disfranchised, unrepresented, and ignored. •• 1. The report of the committee imposes no adequate restraint upon this disfranchisement of races and creation of oligarchies in the State-, because after a race i- disfranchised in a State it gives to one vote cast in such State by the riding race jn.-t the same power a- a vote has in a State where no one i- disfranchised. i. These words of the amendment, to-wit, ' denied or abridged on account of elm-,' admit of dangerous construction, and also of an evasion of the avowed intent of the committee. Tim-, for example, the African race may, in fact, be disfranchised in the Stan-, and yet enumerated a- part of the basis of representation, by mean- of a provision disfranchising all who were slaves, or all whose ancestors were slaves. '•('». The pending proposition of the committee is a radical de- BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 347 parture from the principles of representative republican govern- ment, in this, that it does not provide for nor secure the absolute political equality of the people, or, relatively, of the States. It does not secure to each vote throughout the Government absolute equality in its governing force. It, for example, permits twenty- live thousand votes in New York city to elect two members of Congress, provided one-half of its population should happen to be foreigners unnaturalized, and not electors of the State, whom the law deems unfit to vote; whereas, twenty-five thousand votes in Ohio would elect but one member of Congress, provided her citizens were all Americans instead of foreigners." Mr. Eliot submitted an amendment to the effect that popula- tion should be the basis of representation, and that " the elective franchise shall not be denied or abridged in any State on account of race or color." He stated the following grounds of objection to the resolution offered by the committee: " First, the amend- ment as it is now reported from the committee is objectionable, to my mind, because it admits by implication that a State has the right to disfranchise large masses of its citizens. No man can show that in that Constitution which the fathers made, and under which we have lived, the right is recognized in any State to disfranchise large masses of its citizens because of race. And I do not want now, at this day, that the Congress of the United States, for the purpose of effecting a practical good, shall put into the Constitution of the land any language which would seem to recognize that right. " The next objection I have to the amendment is this : that it enables a State, consistently with its provisions, by making the righf to vote depend upon a property qualification, to exclude large classes of men of both races. A State may legislate in such a way as to be, in fact, an oligarchy, and not a republican State. South Carolina may legislate so as to provide that no man shall have the right to vote unless he possesses an annual income of $1,000, and holds real estate to the amount of five hundred acres. Every one sees that that would exclude multitudes of all classes of citizens, making the State no longer republican, but oligarchical. Yet gentlemen say that under the Constitution Congress is bound to see to it that each State shall have a republican form of government. "The third objection I have to this amendment is, that it controls by implication that power; because, while the Constitu- 84& THE THIRTY-NINTR CONGRESS tion ik.w says thai Congress shall guarantee to everj State a republican form of government, this amendment, as reported by the committee, admit- by implication that, although a State may so legislate as to exclude these multitudes of men, not on account of race or color, bul on account of property, yet, nevertheless, she would have a republican form of government, and that Congress will not and ought not to interfere." Mr. Pike, of Maine, had, on the assembling of Congress after the holidays, offered a resolution expressing the idea contained in the report of the committee, but on reflection had come to the .■oncliisii.il that the resolution would not accomplish the purp desired. He stated his reasons for changing his opinion. He thought that the provisions of the proposed amendment might be evaded. "Suppose/' said he, "this constitutional amendment in fill) force, and a Stat.' should provide that the right of suffrage should not he exercised by any person who had been a. slav< . or who was the descendant of a slave, whatever his race or color. I submit that it is a serious matter of doubt whether or not that simple provision would not he sufficient to defeat this constitu- tional amendment which we here so laboriously enact and submit to the Slates." Mr. Conkling thought that this criticism could have no prac- tical importance, from the feet that the proposed amendment was to operate in this country, where one race, and only one, has been held in servitude. Mr. Pike replied: "In no State in the South has slavery been confined to any one race. So far as I am acquainted with their statute-, iii no State has slavery been confined to the African race, I know of no slave statute, and I have examined the matter with -Mine care, which -ay- that African- alone -hall be -lav.-. So much for race. As to color, it was a < imon thing throughout the whole South t<» advertise runaway slaves a- having light hair and blue eyes, and all the indications of the Caucasian race, and 'passing themselves oil' for white men.' 1 say further to the honorable gentleman from New York, that well-authenticated instances exist in every slave State where men of Caucasian de- Bcent, of A.nglo-Saxon 1»1 1, have been confined in slavery, and they and their posterity held as slaves; so that not only five 1. lacks were found even-where, but white -laves al-o abounded." Mr. Kdlev, who next addressed the House, also brought proof BASIS OF REPUKSIWTATION. 349 to controvert the "hasty assertion" that but one rare had been enslaved: "The assertion that white persons have been sold into slavery does not depend on common report, but is proven by the reports of the superior courts of almost every Southern State. One poor German woman, who had arrived in our country at thirteen years of age, was released from slavery by the Supreme Court of Louisiana, but not until she had become the mother of three mulatto children, her owner having mated her with one of his darker slaves. Toward the close of the last century, the Su- preme Court of New Jersey decided that American Indians could be reduced to and legally held in slavery. And so long ago as 1741 white slave women were so common in North Carolina, that the Legislature passed a law dooming to slavery the child of every ' white servant woman ' born of an Indian father." Mr. Kelley thought that the enforcement of this long-dormant power of the Constitution would be for the benefit not merely of the poor, the ignorant, and the weak, but also of the wise, " the strong, and the wealthy of our country." "There is now pend- ing," said he, " before the Legislature of regenerated and, as gentlemen would have us believe, reconstructed Virginia, a bill to require five years' residence on the part of citizens of other States who may invest their capital and settle within the sacred limits of the Old Dominion before they can acquire citizenship. If they may pass a limitation of five years, why may they not pass a limitation of fifty? Why will not any limitation that comes within the ordinary duration of human life be admissible?" Mr. Bromwell, obtaining the floor, inquired whether the ques- tion was in such condition that any amendment or substitute could be offered. The Speaker replied: "Six amendments are pending now. The only one that could be offered would be to amend the amendment of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Stevens,] which was, to add the word ' therein ' in the fif- teenth line. No other amendment would be in order now, the whole legislative power to amend being exhausted." Mr. Bromwell had desired to offer an amendment which, in his opinion, would obviate many of the objections to pending joint resolution, and the amendments thereto; but the way not being open for this, he addressed the House in a brief speech. He said : "When this amendment was introduced, on last Monday morn- ing, the differences of opinion which have been developed in 350 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS n ference to the principles of the amendment were not anticipated. Bui to-day we see that it has, so tin-, nol an advocate upon this floor. Such may be the result with every amendment which may be presented. It is difficult to see, among all the amend- ments which arc now pending, any <>w- of them, or any combina- tion of them, that will meet the desire of the majority, n<>t fco say two-thirds of this House. 1 apprehend that the members of this House desire to act so as to secure the support of a proper major- ity here. 1 apprehend, also, that they desire to make this amend- ment such that it will meet with the sanction of a sufficient number of the States of the Union to make it effectual Now. sir, it is in vain Cor this Congress to launch an amendment which shall the on the road through the Legislatures." "Notwithstanding the difficulties in the way of all the plans proposed, Mr. Bromwell was heartily in favor of modifying the basis of representation. "I think." said he, "seventy years is long enough for fifteen, twenty, or thirty Representative- to -it here and make laws to apply to Northern people, with no con- stituencies behind them. I think it ha- been seen long enough that a large number of persons called property, made property by the law- of the States, shall give to the oligarchs of those particu- lar districts of country the right to outvote the independent men of the North, of the free States, where some approximation has been made to securing God-given rights to all inhabitants. I think that it is wrong that the further a State recedes from com- mon right ami common justice the more power the oligarchy which controls it shall grasp in their hands; and I desire that this amendment -hall be made so that it shall bear down upon that abuse with the crushing power of three-fourth- of the legis- latures of the 1 'nion." After the House had heard so many objectors to the basis of representation, as proposed by the committee, Mi - . Cook, of Illinois, took the floor in favor of the measure. He said: " We have now, as I believe, the golden opportunity to remedy this evil which will never come again to the men of this genera- tion. The system of slavery has fallen. The Stat.- whose repre- sentation was increased by it have, with two or three exceptions, de-troyed their loyal and legal State governments, and now seek reconstruction. The adoption of this amendment by the States lately in rebellion should be one of the guarantees to be insisted BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 351 upon as a condition precedent to their taking equal authority and rank in the Union with the loyal States." To the proposition that the basis of representation should be voters only, Mr. Cook presented the following objections : "1. It is difficult to enumerate voters accurately; their qualifi- cations are fixed by State laws. We can not send Federal officers into every State to adjudicate, in disputed cases, the rights of those claiming to be voters under the State laws, as we should have to do. " 2. It would not be just ; the voters of the country are un- equally distributed. The old States have fewer, the new States more, voters according to the white population. In other words, there is a greater proportion of women and children in the old States. These should be and are represented. They are repre- sented, in the true sense of that word, by their fathers and broth- ers. The man who represents them does so really and practically, and not by legal fiction, like the man who represents ' three-fifths of all other persons.' " 3. It takes from the basis of representation all unnaturalized foreigners. I do not wish to discuss the question whether this would be judicious or not, but I do not want a measure of this almost supreme importance loaded down with these questions, and its passage jeopardized by the incorporation of provisions which would render it so liable to attack and misrepresentation." Mr. Cook referred as follows to some objections urged against the basis of representation proposed by the Reconstruction Com- mittee : " It is said that the Southern States may impose a prop- erty qualification, and so exclude the negroes, not on account of race or color, but for want of a property qualification, or that they might provide for a qualification of intelligence, and so dis- franchise the negroes because they could not read or write, and still enumerate them. To do this they must first repeal all the laws now denying suffrage to negroes; and, second, provide quali- fications which will disfranchise half their white voters; two things neither of which will, in any human probability, occur. And in the event that it was possible that both these measur< should be adopted, and all the blacks and half the whites dis- qualified, it would become a grave question whether the provision of the Constitution which requires the United States to guaranty • to each State a republican form of government would not author- 352 nn: Til urrv-xi.YTH CONGRESS. i/f tl G eminent to rectify so wrong. There is no measure to which fanciful objections may not be urged; but T be- lieve this to be th<' leasl objectionable of any measure which has been suggested to tneel this evil. But above all, I am well per- suaded thai it is the only measure that can meet the approval of three-fourths of the State-: consequently, that this is the only practical measure before the House." Mr. Marshall, of Illinois, declared the proposition, as reported by the committee, to be "wholly untenable, is monstrous, absurd, damnable in its provisions, a greater wrong and outrage on the black race than any thing that has ever been advocated by others." He thus set forth the measure in the light of injustice to the negro: "The gentlemen who report it profess to be, and doubt- less are, the peculiar advocates of the African race. I wish to ask them upon what principle of justice, upon what principle of free government, they have provided that if. after this amend- ment is adopted, South Carolina, Mississippi, or any other State shall adopt a provision that all white men over twenty-one years of age shall be voters, and all black men who have two hundred dollars' worth of property, and if there shall be ten thousand legal black voters in such State, upon what principle will you place in the Constitution of the United States a provision which would deprive these ten thousand legal black voters of any representa- tion upon the floor of Congress, or of being considered in the basis of representation? And I wish to ask the honorable gen- tleman who reported this amendment if that is not the effect and result of the amendment reported from the committee." In reference to the time and place of inaugurating constitu- tional amendments, Mr. Marshall used the following language: "If any amendments are necessary to the Constitution of our country, this is not the time, ami more especially is this not the place, to inaugurate such amendments. 1 believe, notwithstand- ing the conceded wisdom, ability, and virtue of this Souse, that the lathers who framed our glorious Constitution were wiser, bet- ter, and nobler than we are: yet every day we have offered here some dozen or twenty proposed amendments to the Constitution, offered as if we were discussing resolutions in a town meeting." Among the propositions before the House relating to this sub- ject, was an amendment proposed by Mr. Schenck, of Ohio, pro- JBdSIS OF REPRESENTATION. 353 viding that representation should bo based upon "the number of male citizens of the United States over twenty-one years of age, having the qualifications requisite for electors of the most nume- rous branch of the State legislature." Mr. Schenck addressed the House, and thus gave a history of his own connection with the measure : " At a very early day in this session, I was one of those disposed to ask the attention of Congress to the subject, to propose in proper form the submission of the question to the Legislatures of the several States. On the first day of the session, on the 4th of December last, as soon as the House was organized, I gave notice that I would on the next, or some succeeding day, introduce a proposition to amend the Constitution. On the ensuing day I did accordingly present a joint resolution. It stands as House Resolution No. 1 of the ses- sion. " In that I propose representation hereafter shall be based upon suffrage. I propose that representation shall be apportioned among the several States of the Union according to the number of voters having qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the Legislature of the State where they reside, follow- ing in this the language of the Constitution ; these voters, how- ever, to be further limited in their descriptions and definitions as being male citizens of the United States over twenty-one years of age. Now, whether the proposition be a good one or not ; whether the limitation be such as should commend itself to the masses of our people, I will not for the present inquire. I will only remark they have seemed to me to embrace as many qualifications as we ought to include when we are going to lay down a new organic law on this subject." An objection urged by Mr. Schenck against the plan proposed by the committee was, that it failed to offer inducements for a gradual enfranchisement of the negro. He said: "Now, sir, I am not one of those who entertain Utopian ideas in relation, not merely to the progress, but to the immediate change of sentiment, opinions, and practice among the people of those States that have so lately been slave States, and so recently in rebellion. I believe that, like all other people, their growth toward good and right and free institutions must necessarily be gradual; and if we pa-vs the amendment which I have proposed, or any thing similar to it, and say to them, 'You shall have representation proportioned to 23 -,Jf. THE THIRTY-XT XTII CONGRESS. the portion of your population to which you extend this inesti- mable franchise,' my belief is thai they will not, on the next day after it becomes a part of the organic law <>t' the United States, al once enfranchise all the oegroes in their midst. I am nol sun' that they oughl to do it ; l»ut we are dealing with the matter now as it presents itself as a practical question. What will they ( »r< »1 >- ably do? My belief is, that if you persuade them to do right, if you hold out to them an inducement for letting their negroes vote, and striking out these disqualifications and putting all upon the basis of manhood, they will probably begin, after the amend- menl becomes part of the organic law, by extending this right to those who have acquired certain property ; perhaps they will also extend it, after awhile, to those who have certain qualifications of education. However they may proceed, whether rapidly or slowly, it will be a work of progress and a work of time. But by this amendment you would say to them. ' We do oot want you to enter upon any such gradual bringing up of these people to the level plain of right to be enjoyed by them equally with others of other - in your midst.' We say to them, 'You may enfranchise one-third or one-fourth of your people who are black and de- prived of the privilege of voting by introducing the qualification of property, up to which one-third or one-fourth may come; you may introduce a qualification of education, up to which a number of them may come; but that will all he of no value; so long as there is any denial or any abridgement of the right to vote of a single man on account of his race or color, you shall have no part of the population of that race or color counted to measure to you your -hare of representation.' "Now, I will not go into the abstract question whether they ought to enfranchise the negroes at once or not; I will nol go into the question of how soon they ought to do it as a matter of expediency; 1 say that, in all human probability, when they come to enfranchise, if they do it at all, this portion of their popula- tion, they will do it gradually; vet. by this amendment, a- it comes from the committee, you say that they -hall not be repre- sented for any part of it at all till they completely enfranchise them and put them on the same footing with the white popula- tion." In conclusion, Mr. Schenok remarked: "New England, it" she should even lose a vote, or two votes, or a fraction of a vote, can BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. not afford, any more than Ohio or Indiana, or any other of those States can, having these particular objections to the scheme, to let the opportunity go by now and not introduce a general amend- ment which Avill remedy the one great evil under which we are all laboring together. I hold that Ohio must give up her objec- tions on account of her negro population; that the North-western States must give up their objections on account of the fact that they are permitting persons to vote who are not yet citizens of the United States. Those persons would have to wait, 'to tarrv at Jericho until their beards are grown.' I hold that New Eng- land must give up her objections; and, if we are to amend the organic law at all, we must do it by uniting upon a common principle, a common sympathy, a common feeling, at least on this side of the House, upon which the entire responsibility is thrown, acting harmoniously, and adopting such an amendment to the organic law as shall be entirely democratic and fair in all its scope and action upon all the people of the States of this Union." The discussion was continued on the dav following, Mr. El- dridge, of Wisconsin, having the floor for the first speech; After having expressed his satisfaction that the sun was allowed to go down on the deliberations upon this resolution, he confessed him- self opposed to the amendment of the Constitution. He said : " I believe that this is not the time for its amendment, and I believe, further, that there are other States than those represented upon this floor which are entitled to deliberate with us on that ques- tion, and to that point I shall mainly address the remarks which I have to make at this time." He made a protracted speech on the general subject of recon- struction. At the close of his remarks, he said : " It would much more comport with the dignity and sense of justice of the American Congress to let the legally elected members from the Southern States be admitted, and participate in the proceedings and debates, especially in matters of so great importance as a change in our organic law. Let us have a representation for our whole country. Wherever the American flag floats, from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico — wherever the Star-spangled Banner waves — that is our country. And let us legislate as Americans, as Representatives of our whole country, in a spirit of justice, liberality, and patriotism, and we will again have one country." 3o THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGBE& Mr. Higby, of California, was opposed to the joint resolution, the fact that the proviso in the proposed amendmenl is in conflict with thai portion of the Constitution which requires that "the United S shall guarantee to every State in this Onion a republican form of government." '"I Bay it." said he, " with- out fear or favor, that thai amendmenl will allow any £ governmenl in it- organization to exclude one-half of its popu- lation from the right of suffrage; and I say Buch State govern- ments will not be republican in form." In a conversation which ensued with some members, Mr. Higby maintained that no State excluding any class of citizens on account of race or color was republican in form. "I do not believe," said he, " there is a single State in the Union, except it may be one of the New England States, which is an exception to that gen- eral rule." Mr. Hill, of Indiana, asked whether the gentleman would favor the House with his opinion as to what would be a repub- lican form of government. Mr. Higby was sorry that the gentleman had lived to his time of life, and obtained a position as the Representative of a large constituency, without finding out what a republican form of government is. "I will ask the gentleman," -aid he, "if he think sthat those States that have excluded and disfranchised more than half of their native population have a republican form of government*.'"' "In my opinion," said Mr. Hill, '-when the framers of the Constitution placed in that instrument the declaration or the pro- vision that the Government of the United States would guarantee to i tch State a republican form of government, they spoke with ence to such governments as then existed, and such as those same framers recognized for a long time afterward as republican government-." " Well, that is a very good answer," said Mr. Higby. " It Ls an answer from a stand-point seventy-five year- ago. I speak from the stand-point of the present time." Mr. Higby desired that the joint resolution should go back to the committee. He said: " I do nol wish it disposed of here, to be voted down. I want, if it is possible, that it shall bo so framed that it shall receive the full constitutional majority required, and be a proposition that shall operate with full force in all those BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 357 States that now have a great population excluded from the rights of citizenship." "If the gentleman proposes," said Mr. Stevens, "to send it back to the committee without instructions, I would ask him what we arc to do. There are not quite a.s many views upon this floor as there are members; but the number lacks very little of it. And how are we to gather up all those views spread through all this discussion, and accommodate all, when each view would now probably receive from one to three votes in its favor?" " I have only this to say," replied Mr. Higby : " with my views of the Constitution, I never can vote for this proposition with this proviso in its present language. I say that it gives a power to the States to make governments that are not republican in form.'' " I say to my friend," said Mr. Stevens, " that if I thought, that by any fair construction of language, such an interpretation could be given as he gives, I would vote against it myself; but I do not believe there is any thing in that objection." Mr. Bingham took the floor in favor of the proposed joint resolu- tion. In " giving this and other amendments to the Constitution my support," said he, " I do not subject myself to the gratuitous imputation of a want of reverence either for the Constitution or its illustrious founders. I beg leave, at all events, to say, with all possible respect for that gentleman, that I do not recognize the right of any man upon this floor, who was a representative of that party which denied the right to defend the Constitution of his country by arms against armed rebellion, to become my accuser. " In seeking to amend, not to mar, the Constitution of the United States, we ought to have regard to every express or implied limitation upon our power imposed by that great instrument. When gentlemen object to amending the Constitution, when they talk sueeringly about tinkering with the Constitution, they do not remember that it is one of the express provisions of that instru- ment that Congress shall have power to propose amendments to the Legislatures of the several States. Do gentlemen mean, by the logic to which we have listened for the past five days on this sub- ject of our right to amend, that we arc not to add any thing to the Constitution, and that we are to take nothing from it? I pre- fer to follow, in this supreme hour of the nation's trial, the lead of a wiser and nobler spirit, who, by common consent, was called, while he lived, ' the Father of his ( 'otintry,' and, now that he is 358 TEE TIIIL'T) -.\ 7. \ 77/ CONGRESS. dead, i< -till reverenced as ' the Father of his Country/ and to be hailed, I trust, by the millions <>(' tin- future who are to people this land of our- a- • the Father of his < !ountry.' In his Farewell Address, his last official utterance, Washington used th iiii- cant words, which I repeal to-day for the consideration of gentle- men: "The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.' We pro- - . sir, simply to act in accordance with this suggestion of Washington. We propose, in presenting these amendments, to alter, in so fir as the changed condition of the country requires, the fundamental law, in order to seeure the safety of the republic and furnish better guarantees in the future for the rights of i and all. "The question that underlies this controversy is this: whether .vill stand by the Constitution in it- original intent and spirit, or, like cravens, abandon it. I assert it here to-day, without fear of contradiction, that the amendment pending before this House i- an amendment conforming exactly to the spirit of the Constitu- tion, and according to the declared intent of it- rramers. "My friend from California [Mr. Higby] has informed us that there are one hundred thousand more free colored citizens of the United States in the State of Mississippi to-day than there are of white citizens : that there are one hundred thousand more free •red citizens of the United States in South Carolina than then 1 are of white citizen- ; and then we are gravely told that we must not press this amendment, because we are abandoning the ( \m-ti- tution and the intent of our fathers. That i< a new discovery, one for which the Democracy ought to take out letters patent, that it was ever intended that a minority of free citizens should disfranchise the majority of tree male citizens of full age, in any State of the Union! For myself, I will never consent to it." In answer to the objection that the proviso in the proposed amendment seemed to acknowledge the righl to deny or abridge the elective franchise on account of race or color, Mr. Bingham said : " I beg the gentleman to consider that a -rant of power by : nplication can not ] H - raised by a law which only imposes a penalty, and nothing but a penalty, for a non-performance of a duty or the violation of a right. Within the last hundred years, in no country where the common law ol>tain.-, I venture to say, any implication of a grant of power ever been held t-> be BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 350 raised by such a law, and especially an implied power, to do an act expressly prohibited by the same law. The guarantee of your Constitution, that the people shall elect their Representa- tives in the several Stales, can not be set aside or impaired by inserting in your Constitution, as a penalty for disregarding it, the provision that the majority of a State that denies the equal rights of the minority shall suffer a loss of political power. "I have endeavored to show that the words of the Constitu- tion, the people of 'the States shall choose their Representa- tives/ is an express guarantee that a majority of the free male citizens of the United States in every State of this Union, being of full age, shall have the political power subject to the equal right of suffrage in the minority of free male citizens of full age. There is a further guarantee in the Constitution of a republican form of government to every State, which I take to mean that the majority of the free male citizens in every State shall have the political power. I submit to my friend that this proviso is nothing but a penalty for a violation on the part of the people of any State of the political right or franchise guaranteed by the Constitution to their free male fellow-citizens of full age. "The guarantee in the first article of the second section of the Constitution, rightly interpreted, is, as I claim, this: that the majority of the male citizens of the United States, of full age, in each State, shall forever exercise the political power of the State with this limitation: that they shall never by caste legislation im- pose disabilities upon one class of free male citizens to the denial or abridgement of equal rights. The further provision is, that the United States shall guarantee to each State a republiean form of government, which means that the majority of male cit- izens, of full age, in each State, shall govern, not, however, in violation of the Constitution of the United States or of the rights of the minority." In closing his address, Mr. Bingham said: "I pray gentlemen to consider long before they reject this proviso. It may not be the best that the wisest head in this House can conceive of, but 1 ask gentlemen to consider that the rule of statesmanship is to take the best attainable essential good which is at our command. The reason why I support the proposed amendment is, thai I believe it essential and attainable. I do not dare to say that it could not be improved. I do dare to say that it is in aid of the 3G0 THE TllIRTY-.XIXTll CONGRESS. existing grants and guarantees of tl ' nstitution of my country, that it is simply a penalty to be inflicted upon the States for a specific disregard in the future of those wise and just and humane -rant- ' to the people' to elect their Representatives and maintain a republican government in each State. •• Mr. Speaker, the republic is great ; it i- -Teat in its domain, equal in extent t<> continental Europe, abounding in productions oC every /.one, broad enough ami fertile enough to fiirnish bread and homes to three hundred million freemen. The republic is great in the intelligence, thrift, industry, energy, virtue, and valor of it.s unconquered and unconquerable children, and great in its matchless, wise, ami beneficent Constitution. I pray the ' gress of the United State- to propose to the people ail needful amendments to the Constitution, that by their sovereign act they may crown the republic for all time with the greatness of justice." Mr. Broomall, of Pennsylvania, presented an objection to the resolution which had not been alluded to by any gentleman on the floor. lie said: "The resolution provides that whenever the elective franchise -ball be denied or abridged in any State, on ace 'unt of race or color, all persons of such race or color shall be excluded from the ba.-is of representation. Now, there i- a great deal of indefiniteness in both those term-, 'race' and -color.' '• What i- a race of men? Writers upon the subject of v. differ very materially on this point. Some of them would make four or five races: others fifteen; and one, whom I might name, seems inclined not to limit the number short of a thousand. 1 myself am inclined to think that the Celtic race is a distinct one from our-. 1 think that any gentleman who has studied this subject attentively will at least have doubts whether or not the race that appear- t<» have inhabited Europe in the early bistoric period, and has been partly dispossessed there by our-, i- m>t a distinct race from ours. "Again: the word 'color' i- exceedingly indefinite. If we had a constitutional standard of color, that of sole-leather, for example, by which to i.-t the State laws upon this subject, there might be less danger in incorporating this provision in the Con- stitution. I > 1 1 the term 'color' is uowhere defined in the Con- stitution or the law. We apply the term to persons who are of African descent, whether their color is whiter or darker than ours. BASIS OF BEPBESEjYTA TlOJf. 361 Every one who is familiar with the ethnological condition of things here in the United States, and who sec- the general mix- ing up of colors, particularly in the Democratic portion of the country — I allude to that portion south of Mason and Dixon's line — must say with me that the word ' color' has no very dis- tinct meaning when applied to the different peoples of the United States of America." Two Representatives from New York — Mr. Davis and Mr. Ward — expressed opinions favorable to a modification of the basis of representation, and yet were opposed to the details of the proposition before the House. Mr. Nicholson, of Delaware, in emphatic terms, denounced the acts of a majority of the House in attempting to amend the Con- stitution. " If they shall finally triumph," said he, " in the mad schemes in which they are engaged, they will succeed in convert- ing that heretofore sacred instrument, reverenced and obeved till the present dominant party came into power, from a bond of union to a galling yoke of oppression — a thing to be loathed and despised." The discussion was still much protracted. Many members had an opportunity of presenting their views and opinions without adding much to the arguments for or against the measure. The power of debate as well as the power of amendment seemed to have exhausted themselves, and yet gentlemen continued to swell the volume of both through several days. On Friday, January 26th, Mr. Harding, of Kentucky, made a violent political speech, ostensibly in opposition to the measure before the House. The following is an extract from his remarks : " The Republican party have manufactured a large amount of capital out of the negro question. First they began with caution, now they draw on it as if they thought it as inexhaustible as were the widow's barrel of meal and cruse of oil. The feet that the negro question has continued so long has been owing to the great care with which the Republican party has managed it." Mr. McKee, of Kentucky, followed. Referring to his colleague who had preceded him, he said: "I regret extremely that In' has pursued the same line of policy that gentlemen belonging to the same political party have pursued ever since the idea took poss< — sion of the Government that the negro was to be a freeman. I lis whole speech has been made up of the negro and nothing else. /'/.' THE THIRTT-MXTH COX GUI. "I would like it if the amendment could go a little beyond what it does. I would like so to amend the Constitution that no man who had raised his hand against the flag should ever be al- lowed to participate in any of the affairs of this Government. But it is not probable that we can go that far. Let us go just as far as we can. •■ < rentlemen say that they are not willing to vote for an amend- ment that strikes off a part of the representation of the they are not willing to vote for an amendment that lessens Ken- tucky"- representation upon this floor. The whole course of my colleague's remarks on this point is as the course of his party — and I may say of the loyal party in Kentucky — has been thro a great part of the war, that Kentucky is the nation, and the United States a secondary appendage to her." Mr. Kerr, of Indiana, did not desire to be heard at length upon the main question before the House, but upon some questions in- cidentally connected with it. lie then proceeded to discuss the question whether Congress ha- "the power so to regulate the suf- frage a- to give the right of suffrage to every male citizen of the country of twenty-one years of ag "I propose now," -aid h ■. '•for a few moments, to examine this question with a somewhat extensive reference to the history of the Constitution in this con- nection, and if possible to arrive at a conclusion whether the honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania ha- given greater atten- tion to the history of this question than the President, and whether the conclusion which he has reached i- a safer one for the country, or more in harmony with the history and true intent of the Constitution, than that of the President." Near the close of his remark-, referring to the measure before the Bouse, Mr. Kerr remarked: " 1 can see but one single clear resull that will follow from this amendment if it is adopted by the people of tin- country, and that is an effect that will inure not to the advantage of the nation, nor of any State in the Union, nor <»f any class or race of men in any State; but it will inure .solely to the benefit and advantage of the Republican party. In my judgment, the only p rsons who will gain by this provision will be the now dominant party in this country. They will thereby increase their power \ they will thereby degrade the South; they will reduce her representation here, and relatively Increase their own representation : they will confirm the sectional BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 363 Supremacy of the Xorth in the legislation and administration of tin Government. They may thus compel the South to become suppliants at their feet for justice, and it may be for mercy." ?s I f. Kasson, of Iowa, and Mr. Wright, of New Jersey, made extended remarks, avowedly in opposition to the measure, but dwelling, for the greater portion of their time, upon subjects re- motely connected with the resolution before the House Discussion was resumed in the House on Monday, January 29th. The question having become much complicated by the numerous propositions to amend, the Speaker, by request of Mr. Conkling, stated the exact position of the subject before the House, and the various questions pending. The Speaker said : " The committee having reported this joint resolution, the gen- tleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] moved to amend by inserting the word ' therein ' after the words ' all persons,' in the last clause of the proposed amendment to the Constitution. " Pending that motion, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley] moved an entirely new proposition in the nature of a substitute for the joint resolution reported from the joint com- mittee, proposing an amendment to the Constitution differing from the one reported from the committee. The gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Baker] also submitted for his colleague [Mr. In- gersoll] a proposition in the nature of a substitute for the one reported from the committee, as an amendment to the amend- ment. " Pending those two propositions, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Lawrence] moved to recommit the joint resolution to the joint committee with certain instructions. The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Eliot] moved to amend the instructions, and the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Schenck] moved to amend the amendment. " The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Le Blond] also moved to commit the whole subject to the Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union. The first question will, therefore, be upon the motion to commit to the Committee of the Whole, as that committee is higher in rank than the joint Committee on Recon- struction. •• Next after that will be the various motions to recommit with instructions. If all those propositions should fail, then the mo- tion of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Stevens,] being 364 THE THIETr-.XlXTil CONGRESS for the purpose of per!'. ■.tin-- the original proposition, will come up for consideration. Then propositions in the nature of substi- tutes will come up for consideration; first the amendment to the amendment, proposed by the gentleman from [llinois, [Mr. Ba- ker,] and next the substitute amendment of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Eelley]." Mr. Raymond, of New York, made a speech three hours in length, in opposition to the proposed amendment to th< I isti- tution. Be discussed the general questions of reconstruction, affirming that the Southern States had resumed their functions of self-government in the Union, that they did not change their constitutional relations by making war, and that Congress should admit their Representatives by districts, receiving only loyal men as members. The closing words of Mr. Raymond's speech excited great sensation and surprise. They were as follows: "The gigantic contest is at an end. The courage and devotion on either side which made it so terrible and so long, no longer owe a divided duty, but have become the common property of the American name, the priceless possession of the American Republic through all time to come. The dead of the contending hosts sleep beneath the soil of a common country, and under one common flag. Their hostilities are hushed, and they are the dead of the nation for- ever more. The victor may well exult in, the victory he has achieved. Let it be our task, as it will be our highest glory, to make the vanquished, and their posterity to the latest generation, rejoice in their defeat/' Mr. Julian could not accept heartily the proposition report, d by the joint committee. He thus presented what he considered a preferable plan: "Undo' the constitutional injunction upon the United States to guarantee a republican form of government to every State. 1 believe the power already exists in the nation to regulate the right of suffrage. It can only exercise this power through Congress; and Congress, of course, must decide what is a republican form of government, and when the national authority shall interpose against State action for the purpose of executing the constitutional guarantee. No one will deny the authority of Congress to decide that if a Stale Bhould disfranchise one-third, one-half, or two-third- of her citizens, Such State would cea-e to be republican, and mighl be required to accept a different rule BASIS OF R EPR ES E, \ ' T. I TTO.X. 065 of suffrage. If Congress could intervene in such a rase, it could obviously intervene iu any other case in which it might deem it necessary or proper. It certainly might decide that the disfran- chisement by a State of a whole race of people within her bor- ders is inconsistent with a republican form of government, and in their behalf, and in the execution of its own authority and duty, restore them to their equal right with others to the fran- chise. It might decide, for example, that in North Carolina, where 631,000 citizens disfranchise 331,000, the government is not republican, and should be made so by extending the fran- chise. It might do the same in Virginia, where 719,000 citizens disfranchise 533,000; in Alabama, where 596,000 citizens dis- franchise 437,000 ; in Georgia, where 591,000 citizens disfran- chise 465,000; in Louisiana, where 357,000 citizens disfranchise 350,000; in Mississippi, where 353,000 citizens disfranchise 436,000; and in South Carolina, where only 291,000 citizens disfranchise 411,000. Can any man who reverences the Consti- tution deny either the authority or the duty of Congress to do all this in the execution of the guarantee named? Or if the 411,000 negroes in South Carolina were to organize a govern- ment, and disfranchise her 291,000 white citizens, would any body doubt the authority of Congress to pronounce such govern- ment antirepublican, and secure the ballot equally to white and black citizens as the remedy? Or if a State should prescribe as a qualification for the ballot such an ownership of property, real or personal, as would disfranchise the great body of her people, could not Congress most undoubtedly interfere? So of an edu- cational test, which might fix the standard of knowledge so high as to place the governing power in the hands of a select few. The power in all such cases is a reserved one in Congress, to be exercised according to its own judgment, with no accountability to any tribunal save the people; and without such power the nation would be at the mercy of as many oligarchies as there are States. It is true that the power of Congress to guarantee repub- lican governments in the States through its intervention with the question of suffrage has not hitherto been exercised, but this certainly does not disprove the existence of such power, nor the expediency of its exercise now, under an additional and inde- pendent constitutional grant, and when a fit occasion for it has come through the madness of treason. Why temporize by adopting See TEE THIRTT-XIXTH CONGRESS. half-way measures and a policy of indirection? The shortest distance between two given points is a straight line. Let us follow it in so important a work as amending the Constitution. "How do you know thai the broad proposition I advo will fail in Congress or before the people? These are revolu- tionary days. Whole generations of common time are now crowded into the span of a few years. Life was never befon - grand and blessed an opportunity. The man mistakes his reck- oning who judges either the present or the future by any polit- ical almanac of bygone years. Growth, development, prog are the expressive watchwords of the hour. Who can remember the marvelous events of the past four years, necessitated by the late war, and then predict the failure of further measures, woven into the same fabric, and born of the same inevitable Logic?" On .Monday, January 30th, the proposed constitutional amend- ment was recommitted to the joint Committee on Reconstruction. On the following day Mr. Stevens reported back the joint reso- lution, with an amendment -triking out the words "and direct taxes," so as to fix simply the basis of representation in Congri ss upon population, excluding those races or colors to which the franchise is denied or abridged. Mr. Schenck offered a substitute making "male citizens of the United States over twenty-one years" the basis of representation. Mr. Schenck occupied a few minutes in advocating his proposi- tion. ( )n the other hand, Mr. Benjamin, of Missouri, objected to the substitute as greatly to the detriment of Missouri, since it would reduce her representation in Congress from nine to four, because she has endeavored to place the Government in loyal hand- by disfranchising the rebel element of that State. In doing this she had disfranchised one-half her voter-. The previous question having been called, Mr. Stevens made the closing speech of the protracted discussion. In the opening of his speech, Mr. Stevens said: " It is true we have 1 n in- formed by high authority, at the other end of the avenue intro- duced through an unusual conduit, that no amendment i- ie Bary to the Constitution as our fathers made it, and that it is better to let it Maud as it is. Now. sir, I think very differently, myself, for one individual. T believe there is intrusted to this Congress a high duty, no less important and no less fraught with BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 307 the weal or woe of future ages than was intrusted to the august body that made the Declaration of Independence. I believe now, if we omit to exercise that high duty, or abuse it, we shall be held to account by future generations of America, and by the whole civilized world that is in favor of freedom, and that our nanus will go down to posterity with some applause or with black condemnation if we do not treat the subject thoroughly, honestly, and justly in reference to every human being on this continent." That the above paragraph may be understood, it will be nec- essary to state that the President of the United States himself had taken part in the discussion of the measure pending before Congress. The " unusual conduit " was the telegraph and the press — the means by which his opinions were given to Congress and the public. The President's opinions were expressed in the following paper, as read by the Clerk of the House, at the re- quest of several members : "The following is the substance of a conversation which took place yes- terday between the President and a distinguished Senator, as telegraphed North by the agent of the Associated Press : "The President said that he doubted the propriety at this time of making further amendments to the Constitution. One great amendment had already been made, by which slavery had forever been abolished within the limits of the United States, and a national guarantee thus given that the institu- tion should never exist in the land. Propositions to amend the Constitution were becoming as numerous as preambles and resolutions at town meetings called to consider the most ordinary questions connected with the adminis- tration of local affairs. All this, in his opinion, had a tendency to diminish the dignity and prestige attached to the Constitution of the country, and to lessen the respect and confidence of the people in their great charter of freedom. If, however, amendments are to be made to the Constitution, changing the basis of representation and taxation, (and he did not deem them at all necessary at the present time,) he knew of none better than a simple proposition, embraced in a few lines, making in each State the number of qualified voters the basis of representation, and the value of property the basis of direct taxation. Such a proposition, could be embraced in the fol- ing terms: "'Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union according to the number of qualified voters in each State. " 'Direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union according to the value of all taxable property in each State.' SG8 Tin: rinirr\--M.YTii congress. ■' \ h amendment of this kind would, in bis opinion, place the basis of rep- resentation and direct taxation upon correct principlea The qualified vot- ers were, for th<- most part, men who were Bubject to draft and enlistment when it was necessary to repel invasion, suppress rebellion, and quell do- mestic violence and insurrection They risk their lives, shed their blood, and peril their all to uphold the Go ernment, ami give protection, security, ami value to property. It seemed but just that property Bhould compensate for tin- benefits thus conferred by defraying the expenses incident tu its protection ami enjoyment "Mich an amendment, the President also ted, would remove from -^ all i>.>ues in reference to the political equality of the races. It would leave the States to determine absolutely the qualifications of their own voters with regard to color; ami thus the number of Representatives to which they would he entitled in Congress would depend upon the num- ber upon whom they conferred the right of suffrage. "The President, in this connection, expressed the opinion that the agita- tion of the negro-franchise question in the District of Columbia, at this time was the mere entering-wedge to the agitation of the question throughout the States, and was ill-timed, uncalled tor. and calculated to do great harm. lie believed that it would engender enmity, contention, and strife between the two races, and lead to a war between them which would result in great injury to both, and the certain extermination of the negro population. Precedence, he thought, should he given to more important and urgent mat- ters, legislation upon which was essential for the restoration of the I nion, the peace of the country, and the prosperity of the people/' " This," said Mr. Stevens, I take to be an authorized utterance of ciio a! the other end of the avenue. I have no douht that this is the proclamation, the command of the President of the United States, made and put forth by authority in advance, and at a time when this Congress was legislating on this very question ; made, in my judgment, in violation of the privileges of this Bouse; made in such a way that centuries ago, had it been made to Par- liament by a British king, it would have cost him his head. But, -it-, we pass that by ; we are tolerant of usurpation in this tolerant ( rovernment of ours." In answer to those who contended that Congress should regu- late the righl of suffrage in the States, Mr. Stevens said: "If you should take away the righl which now is and always has been exercised by the State-, by fixing the qualifications of their electors, instead of getting nineteen States, which is necessary to ratify this amendment; you might possibly get five. 1 ven- ture to say you could not gel live in this Union. And that is an answer, in the opinion of the committee, to all that has been BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 369 said on this subject. But it grants no right. It says, however, to the State of South Carolina and other slave States, True, we leave where it has been left for eighty years the right to fix the elective franchise, but you must not abuse it; if yon do, the Constitution will impose upon you a penalty, and will continue to inflict it until you shall have corrected your actions. "Now, any man who knows any thing about the condition of aspiration and ambition for power which exists in the slave States, knows that one of their chief objects is to rule this conn- try. It was to ruin it if they could not rule it. They have not been able to ruin it, and now their great ambition will be to rule it. If a State abuses the elective franchise, and takes it from those who are the only loyal people there, the Constitution says to such a State, You shall lose power in the halls of the nation, and you shall remain where you are, a shriveled and dried-up nonentity instead of being the lords of creation, as you have been, so far as America is concerned, for years past. "Now, sir, I say no more strong inducement could ever be held out to them ; no more severe punishment could ever be in- flicted upon them as States. If they exclude the colored popu- lation, they will lose at least thirty-five Representatives in this hall; if they adopt it, they will have eighty-three votes." Mr. Stevens urged several objections to the proposition of Mr. Schenck. He said: "If I have been rightly informed as to the number, there are from fifteen to twenty Representatives in the Northern States founded upon those who are not citizens of the United States. In New York I think there are three or four Representatives founded upon the foreign population — three cer- tainly. And so it is in Wisconsin, Iowa, and other Northern States. There are fifteen or twenty Northern Representatives that would be lost by that amendment and given to the South whenever they grant the elective franchise to the negro. "Now, sir, while I have not any particular regard for any for- eigner who goes against me, yet I do not think it would be wise to put into the Constitution or send to the people a proposition to amend the Constitution which would take such Representatives from those States, and which, therefore, they will never adopt. "But I have another objection to the amendment of my friend from Ohio. His proposition is to apportion representation ac- cording to the male citizens of the States. Why has he put in 24 .0 THE THIRTY-NINTH COJfGRES the word 'male?' It was never in the ( lonstitution of the United States before. Why make a erusade against women in the Con- tution of the nation? [Laughter.] Is ray friend as much afraid of their rivalry as the gentlemen on the other side of the House are afraid of the rivalry of the negro? [Laughter.] I do not think we ought to disfigure the Constitution with 3uch a provision. I find that every unmarried man is opposed to the proposition. Whether married men have particular reason for dreading inter- ference from that quarter I know not. [Laughter.] I certainly shall never vote to insert the word 'male' or the word 'white' in the national Constitution. Let these things be attended to by the States." In answer to the objection that the amendment proposed by the committee " might be evaded by saying that no man who had ever been a slave should vote, and that would not be disfranchisement on account of race or color," Mr. Stevens said : " Sir, no man in America ever was or ever could be a slave if he was a white man. I know white men have been held in bondage contrary to law. But there never was a court in the United States in a slave State or a free State, that has not admitted that it' one held as a slave could prove himself to be white, he was that instant free. And. therefore, such an exclusion, on account of previous condition of slavery, must be an exclusion on account of race or color. Chere- fore that objection falls to the ground." In reply to the closing paragraph of Mr. Raymond's speech, Mr. Stevens said: "I could not but admire (an admiration min- gled with wonder) the amiability of temper, the tenderness of heart, the generosity <>\' feeling which must have prompted some of the closing sentences of the excellent and able sp b delivered by the gentleman <>n last Monday. His words were these: " 'The gigantic contest i< at an end. Th turage and devotion on either Bide, which made it so terrible and so long, no longer owe a divided duty, but have become the common property of the American name, the priceless po ion of the American Republic, through all time to come. The dead of th intending hosts sleep beneath the Boil of a common country, under their common Bag Their hostilities are hushed, and they are the dead of the nation for evermore - Sir, much more than amiable, much more than religions, must be the sentiment that would prompt any man to say that 'the BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 371 courage and devotion ' which so long withstood our arms, pro- longing the terrible conflict of war, and sacrificing the lives of thousands of loyal men, arc hereafter to be the common boast of the nation, 'the priceless possession of the American Republic through all time to come;' that it is the pride of our countrv so many infamous rebels were so ferocious in their murders. "Sir, we are to consider these dead on both sides as the dead of the nation, the common dead! And so, I suppose, we are to raise monuments beside the monuments to Reynolds and others, to be erected in the cemetery on the battle-field of Gettysburg. We must there build high the monumental marble for men like Barksdale, whom I have seen in this hall draw their bowie-knives on the Representatives of the people; men who died upon the battle-field of Gettysburg in arms against the Government, and where they now lie buried in ditches, 'unwept, unhonored, and unsung!' They are, I suppose, to be raised and put into the fore-front ranks of the nation, and we are to call them through all time as the dead of the nation ! Sir, was there ever blasphemy before like this? Who was it burnt the temple of Ephesus? Who was it imitated the thunder of Jove? All that was poor compared with this blasphemy. I say, if the loyal dead, who are thus associated with the traitors who murdered them, put by the gentleman on the same footing with them, are to be treated as the 'common dead of the nation' — I say, sir, if they could have heard the gentleman, they would have broken the cerement-; of the tomb, and stalked forth and haunted him until his eye-balls were seared." The rpiestion was first taken on the substitute offered bv Mr. Schenck, which was rejected by a vote of one hundred and thirty- one to twenty-nine. The question was then taken on agreeing to the joint resolution as modified by the committee, and it was decided in the affirma- tive bv the following vote : Yeas — Messrs. Alloy. Allison, Amos. Anderson. James M Ashley, Baker, Banks, Barker, Baxter, Beaman, Benjamin, Bidwell, Bingham, Blaine, Blow, Boutwell, Brandegee, Bromwell, Broomall, Buckland, Bundy, Reader W. Clarke, Sidney Clarke, Cobb, Conkling, Cook, Cullom, Darling, Davis. Dawes, Defrees, Delano, Doming, Dixon, Donnelly, Eckley, Eggleston, Farnaworth, Farquhar, Ferry, Garfield, Grinnell, Griswold, Abner C. Harding, Dart, Hayes, Hill. Holmes, Hooper, Hotehkiss, Asahel W. Hubbard. Chester D. s: -' riii: thirty-ninth coj\ Hubbard, Demas Hubbard, Jobn IT Hubbard, James \l Hubbell, Halburd, James Humphrey, Ingersoll, Julian, Kasson, Kelley, Kelso Ketcham, Kuv- kendall, Laflin, George \ Lawrence, William Lawrence, Longyear, Lynch, Marston, Marvin, McClurg Mclndoe, McKee, Mercur, Miller, Moorhead, Morrill, Morris, Moulton, Myers, O'Neill, Orth, Paine, Patterson, Perham, Pike. Plants Pomeroj Price, Alexander II Rice John II Rice, Rolli Sawyer, Schenck, Scofield, Shellabarger, Sl< 3 dding, Starr. Stevei Stilwell, Thayer, Francis Thomas, John L Thomas, Upson Van Aemam, Burt Van Horn, Robert T. Van Horn, Ward Warner, Elihu I!. Washburne, William I! Washburn, Welker, Wentworth, William-, James F. Wilson, Stephen F. Wilson, Windom, and Woodbridg< — 12 Nays — Messrs. Baldwin, Bergen, Boyer, Brooks Chanler Dawson, Dei nison, Eldridge Eliot, Pinck, Grider, Hale, Aaron Harding, Harris, Hogan, Edwin X. Hubbell, James M. Humphrey, Jenckes, Johnson Kerr, Latham, Le Blond, Mar-hall. McCullough, Niblack, Nicholson, Noell, Phelps, Sam- uel J. Randall, William 11. Randall, Raymond, Ritter, Rogers, Ross R • u, Shanklin, Sitgreaves, Smith. Strouse, Taber, Taylor, Thornton, Trim' Voorhees, Whaley, and Wright — 16. N< i Voting — Messrs. Ancona, Delos R. Ashley, Culver, Driggs, Dumont, Glos8brenner, Goodyear, Henderson, Higby, Jones, Loan McRuer, Newell, Radford, Trowbridge, and Winfield — 16. Two-thirds having voted in the affirmative, the Speaker de- clared the joint resolution adopted. The strong vote by which this measure was passed, after so genera] an expression of dissent from it, excited some surprise. Many gentlemen evidently surrendered their individual prefer- ences for the sake of unanimity. They believed that this was the best measure calculated to secure just representation, which would pass the ordeal of Congress and three-fourths of the States. They accepted the " rule of statesmanship," t<> " take the best attainable, essentia] good which is at our command." A disposition t<> rebuke supposed Executive dictation had some effect to produce an unexpected unanimity in favor of the measure. One Rhode [sland and two Massachusetts members insisted on national negro suffrage, and voted against the amendments. Mr. Raymond ami Mr. Hale, of New York, were the only Repub- licans who voted against the measure in accordance with the President's opinions. Of the border slave State members, ten voted for the amendment and sixteen against it. BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 373 CHAPTER XV. THE BASIS OF REPRESENTATION— IN THE SENATE. The Joint Resolution goes to the Senate — Counter-proposition by Mr. Sumner — He Speaks Five Hours — Mb. Henderson's Amendment — Mr. Fessenden — Mr. Henry S. Lane — Mr. Johnson — Mr. Henderson — Mr. Clark's Historical Statements — Fred. Douglass' Memorial — Mr. Wil- liams — Mr. Hendricks — Mr. Chandler's "Blood-letting Letter" — Proposition of Mr. Yates — His Speech — Mr. Buckalbw against New England — Mr. Pomeroy — Mr. Sumner's Second Speech — Mr. Doolittle — Mr. Morrill — Mr. Fessenden meets Objections — Final Vote — The Amendment Defeated. THE joint resolution, providing for amending the basis of representation, having passed the House of Representatives on the last day of January, 1866, the action of that body was communicated to the Senate. The Civil Rights Bill at that time occupying the attention of the Senate, Mr. Fessenden gave notice that unless something should occur to render that course unwise, he would ask that the consideration of the proposed constitutional amendment should be taken up on the following Monday, February 5th. On the second of February, Mr. Sumner gave notice of his intention to move a joint resolution as a counter-proposition to the proposed constitutional amendment. Mr. Sumner's resolution was as follows : Whereas, it is provided in the Constitution that the United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a republican form of government ; ami whereas, by reason of the failure of certain States to maintain Governments which Congress can recognize, it has become the duty of the United Si standing in the place of guarantor, where the principal lias made a lapse, to secure to such States, according to the requirement of the guarantee, governments republican in form: and whereas, further, it is provided in a recent constitutional amendment, that Congress may 'enforce the prohibi- 3 74 THE THIRTY-NINTH C0MG1 tion of Blavery by 'appropriate Legislation,' and it is important to this end that all relics of slavery should be removed, including -.ill dis a of rights "ii a< unt of color; now, therefore, to carry out the guarantei republican form of government, and to enforce tin- prohibition of slavery, /, S H ' ''•' M f j < :'. That in all States lately declared to bi in rebellion there shall 1»- no oligarchy, aristocracy, caste, or monopoly invested with peculiar privi Dr powers, and there shall be no denial of rights, civil or political, on account be the case." The measure proposed by the committee was not entirely satis- factory to Mr. Fessenden. " I am free to coin;—." said he, " that could I legislate upon that subject, although I can see difficulties that would arise from it, yet trusting to time to -often them, and being desirous, if I can, to put into the Constitution a principle that commends itself to the consideration of every enlightened mind at once, 1 would prefer something of that sort, a distinct proposition that all provisions in the constitution or laws of any State making any distinction in civil or political rights, or priv- ileges, or immunities whatever, should he held unconstitutional, inoperative, and void, or word- to that effect. 1 would like that much better; and I take it there arc not many Senator- within the sound of my voice who would not very much prefer it ; but, after all. the committee did not recommend a provision of that description, and I stand here a- the organ of the committee, ap- BASIS OF BEPB ESK YT. 1 TIOK. 37 n proving what they have done, ami not disposed to urge my own peculiar views, if I have any, against theirs, or to rely exclusively on my own judgment so far as to denounce what honorable and true men. of better judgments than myself, have thought best to recommend, and in which I unite and agree with them." After having given objections to limiting the basis of repre- sentation to voters, Mr. Fessenden remarked: "And if you ex- tend it to citizens, or narrow it to citizens, you make it worse so far as many of the States are concerned; for my honorable friends from the Pacific coast, where there is a large number of foreign- ers, would hardly be willing to have them cut off; and they have no benefit, of political power in the legislation of the country arising from the number of those foreigners who make a portion of their population. The difficulty is, that you meet with troubles of this kind every- where the moment you depart from the prin- ciple of basing representation upon population and population alone. You meet with inequalities, with difficulties, with troubles, either in one section of the country or the other, and you are inev- itably thrown back upon the original principle of the Constitution. " It will be noticed that the amendment which we have thus presented has one good quality : it preserves the original basis of representation ; it leaves that matter precisely where the Consti- tution placed it in the first instance; it makes no changes in that respect; it violates no prejudice; it violates no feeling. Even- State is represented according to its population with this distinc- tion : that if a State says that it has a portion, a class, which is not fit to be represented — and it is for the State to decide — it shall not be represented; that is all. It has another good point: it is equal in its operation; all persons in every State are to be counted; nobody is to be rejected. With the very trifling excep- tion fixed by the original Constitution, all races, colors, nations, languages, and denominations form the basis. But, sir, the great excellence of it — and I think it is an excel- lent — is ; that it accomplishes indirectly what we may not have the power to accomplish directly. If we can not put into the Constitution, owing to existing prejudices and existing institu- tions, an entire exclusion of all class distinctions, the next ques- tion is, can we accomplish that work in any other way?' Concerning the "counter-proposition" of Mr. Sumner, the speaker said: "It is, in one sense, like a very small dipper with 380 THE TniRTT-XINTH CONGRESS. • a very long handle; for the preamble is very much more diffuse than the proposed enactmenl itself. I looked to see what came next. 1 supposed thai after that preamble we should have Bome adequate machinery provided for the enforcemenl and security of these rights; that we should have the matter put to the courts, and if the court- could not accomplish it, that we should have the aid of the military power, thus shocking the sensibili- ties of my honorable friend from Indiana [Mr. Hendricks] again. I do not know what good it docs to merely provide by law that the provisions of the Constitution shall be enforced, without say- ing how, in what manner, by what machinery, in what way. to what extent, or how it is to be accomplished. Why reenact the Constitution of the United State- and put it in a bill? What do you accomplish by it'.' How is that a remedy? It is simply as if it read in this way: Whereas, it is provided in the Consti- tution that the United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a republican form of government, therefore we declare that there shall be a republican form of government and nothing else." Mr. Sumner had said, in his speech in opposition to the pro- posed amendment, " Above all, do not copy the example of Pon- tiu- Pilate, who surrendered the Savior of the world, in whom he fouftd no limit at all, to he scourged and crucified, while he set at large Barabbas; of whom the Gospel -ays, in simple words, •Now, Barabbas was a robber.'" To this Mr. Fessenden responded: "Is it a 'mean compro- mise' — for so it is denominated — that the Committee of Fifteen and the House of Representatives, when they passed it. placed themselves in the situation of Pontius Pilate, with the negro for the Savior of the world and the people of the United State- for Barabbas, as designated by the honorable Senator. Why. sir, I expected t<, hear him in the next breath go further than that, and .-ay that with the Constitution of the United States and the con- stitutions of the States the negro had been crucified, and that now, by the amendment of the Constitution, the stone had been rolled away from the dour of the sepulcher, and he hail ascended to sit on the throne of the Almighty and judge the world! One would have keen, permit me to say with all respect, in a- good taste a- the other.*' lu conclusion, Mr. Fessenden -aid: •• 1 wish to say, in closing, BASIS OF REPRESE. YT.l TIOJV. - > 81 that I commend this joint resolution to the careful consideration of the Senate. It is all that we could desire; it is all that our constituents could -wish. It docs not accomplish, as it stands now, all, perhaps, that it might accomplish; but it is an important step in the right direction. It gives the sanction of Congress, in so many words, to an important, leading, effective idea. It opens a way by which the Southern mind — to speak of it as the South- ern mind — may be led to that which is right and just. I have hopes, great hopes, of those who were recently Confederates; and I believe that now that they have been taught that they can not do evil, to all the extent that they might desire, with impunity, and when their attention is turned of necessity in the right direc- tion, the road will seem so pleasant to their feet, or, at any rate, will seem so agreeable to their love of power, that they will be willing to walk in the direction that we have pointed. If they do, what is accomplished? In process of time, under this con- stitutional amendment, if it should be adopted, they are led to enlarge their franchise. That necessarily will lead them to con- sider how much further they can go, what is necessary in order to fit their people for its exercise, thus leading to education, thus leading to a greater degree of civilization, thus bringing up an oppressed and downtrodden race to an equality, if capable of an equality — and I hope it may be — with their white brethren, chil- dren of the same Father. " And, sir, if this is done, some of us may hope to live — I probably may not, but the honorable Senator from Massachusetts may — to see the time when, by their own act, and under the effect of an enlightened study of their own interests, all men may be placed upon the same broad constitutional level, enjoying the same rights, and seeking happiness in the same way and under the same advantages; and that is all that we could ask." On the following day, the discussion was continued by Mr, Lane, of Indiana, who addressed the Senate in a speech of two hours' duration. Mr. Lane seldom occupied the time of the Senate by speech-making, but when he felt it his duty to speak, none upon the floor attracted more marked attention, both from the importance of his matter and the impressiveness of his manner. Much of Mr. Lane's speech, on this occasion, was devoted to the general subject of reconstruction, since he regards the pend- 3* THE T1TIETY-.YI.YTII CONGREh ing measure as one of a series looking to the ultim. storation of the late rebel Stan-. Ele was opposed to undue haste in thi< important work. He said: "The danger is of precipitate action. Delay is dow what we ueed. The infanl in its tiny fingers plays to-day with a handful of acorns, but two hundred year- Inner, by the efflux of time, those acorns are the mighty material out of which navies are built, the monarch of the forest, defying the shock of the storm and the whirlwind. Time is a mighty agent in all these affairs, and we should appeal to time. We are not ready yel lor a restoration upon rebel votes; we are not ready yet tin- a restoration upon colored votes; but, thank God! we are willing and able to wait. We have the Government, we have the Constitution of the United States, we have the army ami the navy, the vast moral and material power of the republic. We can enforce the laws in all the rebel States, and we can keep the peace until such time as they may be restored with safety to them and safety to us." Of the measure proposed by the committee, Mr. Lane re- marked: "This amendment, as I have already endeavored to show, will do away with much of the irregularity now existing, and which would exist under a different state of things, the blacks being all free. So far as the amendment goes, I approve of it, and I think I shall vote for it, but with a distinct under- standing that it is not all that we are required to do. that it i- not the only amendment to the Constitution that Congress is ■ required to make." Mr. Lane expressed his opinion of Mr. Sumner's "counter- proposition" in the following Language: "It is a noble declara- tion, but a simple declaration, a paper bullet that kills no one, and lixev and maintains the rights of no one." Of Mr. Henderson's proposition, he said: "It i^ a simple amendment to the Constitution of the United State-, that no one shall be excluded from the exercise <>f the right of suffrage on account of race or color. That begins at the right point. The only objection to it is, that its operation can not be immediate, and in the mean time the rebels may be permitted to vote, and it- adoption by tin' various State Legislatures is exceedingly doubtful. I should not doubt, however, that we might secure it> adoption by three-fourths of the loyal States who have never led; and I believe that whenever that question is presented, BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 383 the Supreme Court of the United States will determine that a ratification by that number of States is a constitutional approval of an amendment so as to make it the supreme law of the land. I have no doubt about it. "If the rebel States are to be organized immediately, the only question is whether the right of suffrage shall be given to rebel white men or loyal black men. The amendment of the Senator from Missouri meets that issue squarely in the face. Whatsoever I desire to do I will not do by indirection. I trust I shall always be brave enough to do whatsoever I think my duty requires, directly and not by indirection." Mr. Lane, with several other Western Senators, had been counted as opposed to negro suffrage, hence his advocacy of the principle gave much strength to those who desired to take a po- sition in advance of the proposition of the committee. In reply to an oft-reiterated argument that a war of races would result from allowing suffrage to the negro, Mr. Lane remarked: " If you wish to avoid a war of races, how can that be accom- plished? By doing right; by fixing your plan of reconstruction upon the indestructible basis of truth and justice. What lesson is taught by history ? The grand lesson is taught there that re- bellions and insurrections have grown out of real or supposed wrong and oppression. A war of races! And you are told to look to the history of Ireland, and to the history of Hungary. Why is it that revolution and insurrection are always ready to break out in Hungary? Because, forsooth, the iron rule of Austria has stricken down the natural rights of the masses. It is a protest of humanity against tyranny, oppression, that pro- duces rebellion and revolution. So in the bloody history of the Irish insurrections. Suppose the English Parliament had given equal rights to the Irish, had enfranchised the Catholics in Ire- land in the reign of Henry VIII, long ere this peace and har- mony would have prevailed between England and Ireland. But the very fact that a vast portion of a people are disfranchised sows the seeds of continual and ever-recurring revolution and insurrection. It can not be otherwise. These insurrections and revolutions, which are but the protest of our common humanity against wrong, are one of the scourges in the hands of Providence to compel men to do justice and to observe the right. It is the law of Providence, written upon every page of history, that God's THE THIRTY-NINTH COJfGREb vengeance follows man's wrong and oppression, and it will always be so. II' you wish to avoid a war of races, it' you wish to pro- duce harmony and peace among tin se people, you must enfranchise them all." < >n die following day, February 9th, Mr. Johnson, <>f Maryland, occupied tin' time devoted by the Senate to a isideration of this question with a speech against the proposed amendment of the Constitution. Mr. Johnson said that when the Constitution was framed there was no such objection to compromising as now ex- isted in the minds of some Senators. " The framers of the < Con- stitution came t<> the conclusion that the good of the country demanded that there should be a compromise, and they proposed, as a compromise, the provision as it now stands; and that is, that for the purposes of representation, a person held in slavery, or in involuntary servitude, shall be esteemed three-fifths of a man and two-fifths property j and they established the same rule in relation to taxation. They very wisely concluded that, as it \\;is all-im- portant that some general rule should be adopted, this was the best rule, because promising more than any other rule to arrive at a just result of ascertaining the number of Representatives and ascertaining the quota of taxation." Mr. Johnson did not think that the North needed such a pro- vision as this amendment to render her aide to cope with Southern statesmanship in Congress: "Are not the North and the <:ate<- mi'ii of the North equal to the South and the statesmen of the South on all subjects that may come before the councils of the nation'.' What is there, looking to the history of the two sections in the past, which would lead US to believe that the North is in- ferior to the South in any thing of intellectual improvement or of statesmanship ? You have proved — and 1 thank God you have proved — that if listening to evil counsels, rendered effective, per- haps, by your own misjudged legislation, and by the ill-advised course of your own population, exhibited through the press and the pulpit, a portion of the Smith involved the country in a war, the magnitude of which no language can describe — you have proved y0UT8elves adequate to the duty of defeating them in their mad and, a- fir as the letter of the Constitution is concerned, their traitorous purpose. And now, having proved your physical manhood, do you doubl your intellectual manhood? NJr. Presi- dent, in the presence in which I speak, I am restrained from BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. S85 speaking- comparatively of the Senate as it is and the Senate as it has been; but I can say this, with as much sincerity as man ever spoke, that there is nothing to be found in the free States calculated to disparage them properly in the estimation of the wise and the good. They are able to conduct the Government, and they will not be the less able because they have the advice and the counsels of their Southern brethren." In answer to the position that the Southern States were not possessed of a republican form of government, Mr. Johnson re- marked : "Did our fathers consider that any one of the thirteen States who finally came under the provisions of that Constitution, and have ever since constituted a part of the nation, were not living under republican forms of government? The honorable member will pardon me for saying that to suppose it is to dis- parage the memory of those great and good men. There was not a State in the Union when the Constitution was adopted that was republican, if the honorable member's definition of a republican government is the one now to be relied upon. A property qual- ification was required in all at that time. Negroes were not al- lowed to vote, although free, in most of the States. In the Southern States the mass of the negroes were slaves, and, of course, were not entitled to vote. If the absence of the universal right of suffrage proves that the Government is not republican, then there was not a republican government within the limits of the United States when the Constitution was adopted ; and yet the very object of the clause to guarantee a republican govern- ment — and the honorable member's citations prove it — was to prevent the existing governments from being changed by revolu- tion. It was to preserve the existing governments ; and yet the honorable member would have the Senate and the country believe that, in the judgment of the men who framed the Constitution, there was not a republican form of government in existence. " The definition of the honorable member places his charge of anti republicanism as against the present forms of constitution upon the ground of the right to vote. I suppose the block man lias no more natural right to vote than the white man. It is the exclusion from the right that affects the judgment of the honora- ble member from Massachusetts. Voting, according to him, is a right derived from God; it is in every man inalienable; and its denial, therefore, is inconsistent and incompatible with the true 25 386 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. object <>t* a free government. If it be such a right, it is not less a right in the white man than in the black man: it is not less a right in the Indian than in the white man or the Mack man: it is not less a right in the female portion <>t" our population than in tlif male portion. Then the honorable member from Massa- chusetts is living in an antirepublican government, and he oughl not to stay there a moment if he can find any government which would he a government according to his theory. None has ex- isted since the world commenced, and it i- not at all likely that any will exist in all time to come; but if there is any such gov- ernment to l»c found on the face of the earth, let him leave Massa- chusetts, let him hug that angelic delusion which he hopes will encircle the whole world, and go somewhere, where he can indulge it without seeing before him every day conclusive evidence that no such illusion exists at home. Leave Massachusetts, 1 beg the honorable member, just as soon as you can. or you will never be supremely happy." In conclusion, Mr. Johnson remarked, referring to the recent rebels: "Let us take them to our bosom, trust them, and - I believe in my existence, you will never have occasion to regret it. You will, if the event occurs, look back to your participation in it in future time with unmingled delight, because you will be able to date from it a prosperity and a national fame of which the world furnishes no example; and you will be able to date from it the absence of all cause of differences which can hereafter exist, which will keep us together as one people, looking to one destiny, and anxious to achieve one renown." On Tuesday, February 13th, the Senate resumed the consider- ation of the Basis of Representation. Mr. Sumner proposed to amend the proviso recommended by the conimitte< — "all persons therein of such race or color shall be excluded from the basis of representation" — by adding the words "and they -hall be ex- empt from taxation of all kinds." Mr. Henderson, of Missouri, occupied the attention of the Sen- ate, during a considerable part of this and the following day, in a s] eh against the proposition of the Committee of Fifteen, which he considered a compromise, surrendering the rights of the negro out «.f the hand- of the General Government into the hand- of States not tit to be intrusted with them. In favor of his own amendment prohibiting the State- from disfranchising citizens on BASIS OF REPRESE. ^ 'T. 1 TIO. Y. S87 the ground of color, Mr. Henderson said: "I propose to make the State government- republican in fact, as they are in theory. The States now have the power and do exclude the negroes for no other reason than that of color. If the negro is equally com- petent and equally devoted to the Government as the Celt, the Saxon, or the Englishman, why should he not vote? If he pays his taxes, works the roads, repels foreign invasion with his mus- ket, assists in suppressing insurrections, fells the forest, tills the soil, builds cities, and erects churches, what more shall he do to give him the simple right of saying he must be only equal in these burdens, and not oppressed? My proposition is put in the least oifensive form. It respects the traditionary right of the States to prescribe the qualifications of voters. It does not re- quire that the ignorant and unlettered negro shall vote. Its words are simply that ' no State, in prescribing the qualifica- tions requisite for electors therein, shall discriminate against any person on account of color or race.' The States may vet prescribe an educational or property test; but any such test shall apply to white and black alike. If the black man be excluded because he is uneducated, the uneducated white man must be ex- cluded too. If a property test be adopted for the negro, as in New York, the same test must apply to the white man. It reaches all the States, and not a few only, in its operation. I confess that, so far as I am personally concerned, I would go still further and put other limitations on the power of the States in regard to suffrage; but Senators have expressed so much distrust that even this proposition can not succeed, I have concluded to present it in a form the least objectionable in which I could frame it. It will be observed that this amendment, if adopted, will not prevent the State Legislatures from fixing official qualifications. They may prevent a negro from holding any office whatever under the State organization. It is a singular fact, however, that to-day, under the Federal Constitution, a negro may be elected President, United States Senator, or a member of the lower branch of Congress. In that instrument no qualification for office is prescribed which rejects the negro. The white man, not native born, may not be President, but the native-bom African may be. The States, however, may, in this respect, notwith- standing this amendment, do what the Federal Constitution never did." 388 THE TEIRTY-NINTR CONGKES& Mr. Henderson closed hi ch with the following words: "The reasons in favor of my proposition are Inseparably con- ted with all I have said. 1 need not repeat them. Ev< ry consideration of peace demands it. It must l>c done to remove tlf relics of the rebellion; it must be done to pluck out political from the body politic, and restore the elementary princi- of our Government; it must be done to preserve peace in States and harmony in our Federal system; it must be < !■ -m ■ ssure the happiness and prosperity of the Southern people themselves; it nm-t be done to establish in our institutions the principles of universal justice; it must be done to secure the strongest possible guarantees against future wars; it must be done in obedience to that golden rule which insists upon doing to others what we would that others should do unto us; it must be done if we would obey the moral law that teaches us to love our neighbors as ourselves; in fine, it must be done to purify, strengthen, and perpetuate a Government in which are now fondly centered the best hopes of' mankind." Mr. Clark, of New Hampshire, addressed th< S ate on the pending measure. lie made the following interesting historical statements: "As the traveler who has passed a difficult road, when he comes to some high hill looks hack to see the difficult- ies which he ha- passed, I turn back, and I ask the Senator to turn back, to consider what occurred, as I say, about -ix years ago. In the session of L859-60, in the old Senate-chamber, a bill was brought into the Senate of the United States by the then Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Brown], who was chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia, a place which my friend from Maine [Mr. Morrill] now so worthily til! a bill in aid of the education of the children of this District. The bill prop ant certain tines and forfeitures to the use of the schools, and also proposed to tax the people ten cents on every hundred dollars of the property in this District for the purpose of educating the children. That bill proposed to tax the white man and the black man alike; and fearing that the property of the black man would Ix" taxed to educate the child of the white man, 1 proposed an amendment to the bill, that the tax collected from the black man should go to educate the black man'- child. "There was also a further provision of the bill, that if the District raised a certain amount of money for the education of BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 389 the children, the Government of the United States would appro- priate a like amount from the Treasury. If, for instance, you raised $20,000 by taxes on the people in the District, the Gov- ernment should pay £-0,000 more, to be added to it for the ed- ucation of the children of the District. I moved the amendment that no child whose father paid any portion of that tax for the education of the children should be excluded from the benefit of it, be he white or black; but that there might be no incon- venience felt, I agreed to an amendment that the black child should not be put into the same school with the white child, but that they should be educated in different schools to be provided for them; but if the black man paid for educating the children of the District, his child should be educated. There was at once an outcry, 'Why, this is social equality of the two races; this is political equality ;' and they would not consent that the black child should be educated, even with the money of the black father. That amendment was declared to be carried in the Senate of the United States, and after declaring it was carried, the Senate adjourned, and after the adjournment, the chairman of that committee, Mr. Brown, appealed to me personally if I would not withdraw it. I said to him, ' No, I would never withdraw it; if you tax the black onan, the black man should have a part of, the money that you raise from him to educate his child.' "After some days, the bill came up again in the Senate of the United States, and the Senator from Mississippi, the chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia, got up and in open Senate appealed to me, 'Will the Senator from New Hampshire withdraw that amendment?' 'Never, Mr. Presi- dent.' ' Then,' said the Senator from Mississippi, ' I will lay the bill aside, and will not ask the Senate to pass it;' and -<» the whole scheme failed, because they would not consent that the money of the black man should educate his own child, and they could not vote it to educate a white child. "Now I turn back to that time six years ago, and I mark the road that we have come along. I mark where we struck the chains from the black man in this same District, whose child you could not educate six years ago; I mark, in this Senate, at this very session, that we have passed a bill in aid of the Freedmen's Bureau to secure to him his rights in this District; THE TIf[j;Tl--M,YTlf COJfGRES • J mark that all through this nation we have stricken off the chains of the slave and secured to the -lav.- his rights elsewhere in tli<- Union; and we have now come to the height of the hill, ami an- considering whether we will not enfranchise those very k men through all the country." In favor <>l" granting political rights to tin- negro, Mr. Clark made the following remarks: "Mr. President, the question of the negro has troubled the nation long. His condition as a slave troubled you; and his condition as a freedman troubles you. Ar< you sick, heart-sick of this trouble? and do you inquire when will it end".' 1 will tell you. When you have given him equal rights, equal privileges, ami equal security with other citi- zens; when you have opened the way for him to be a man, then will yon have rendered exact justice which can alone insure sta- bility ami content. "Sir, if I ever did hold that this Government was made or belonged exclusively to the white man, I should now he ashamed to avow it, or to claim for it so narrow an application. The black man has made ton many sacrifices to preserve it, and en- dangered his life t<"> often in its defense t<> he excluded from it. The common sentiment of gratitude should open it- doors t<> him, if not political justice and equality. "Mr. President] my house once took tire in the night-time; my two little l><>y- were asleep in it. when I and their mother w< i-e away. The neighbors rushed into it. saved the children, and extinguished the flames. When 1 reached it, breathless and ex- hausted, the first exclamation was, ' Your children arc safe.' Can you tell me how mean a man 1 should have been, and what exe- cration 1 should have deserved, it' the next time those neighbors came to my house 1 had kicked them out of it'.' Tell me. then, I pray you, why two hundred thousand black men, most of whom volunteered in fight your battles, who rushed in to save the burn- house of your Government, should not be permitted to par- ticipate in that Government which they helped to presei When you enlisted and mustered these men, when your adjutant- general went Smith, and gathered them to the recruiting-office, and persuaded them to join your raids-, did he, or any one, tel! them this was the white man's Government ? When they came to the rendezvous, did you point to the sign over the door, * Black men wanted to defend the white man'- Government?' When BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 301 you put upon them the uniform of the United States, did you say, 'Don't disgrace it ; this is the white man's Government?' When they toiled on the march, in the mud, the rain, and the snow, and when they fell out of the ranks from sheer weariness, did you cheer them on with the eneouragement that 'this is the white man's Government ?' "When they stood on picket on the cold, stormy night to guard you against surprise, did you creep up and warm their congealing blood with an infusion of the white man's Government".' When, with a wild hurrah, on the 'double-quick,' they rushed upon the enemy's guns, and bore your flag where men fell fastest and war made its wildest havoc, where explosion after explosion sent their mangled bodies and severed limbs flying through the air, and they fell on glacis, ditch, and scarp and counterscarp, did you caution them against such bravery, and remind them that ' this was the white man's Government?' And when the struggle was over, and many had fought ' their last battle,' and you gathered the dead for burial, did you exclaim, 'Poor fools! how cheated! this is the white man's Government?' No, no, sir; you beck- oned them on by the guerdon of freedom, the blessings of an equal and just Government, and a ' good time coming.' " ' White man's Government,' do you say ? Go to Fort Pil- low; stand upon its ramparts and in its trenches, and recall the horrid butchery of the black man there because he had joined you against rebellion, and then say, if you will, ' This is the white man's Government.' Go to Wagner. Follow in the track of the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth, as they went to the terrible assault, with the guns flashing and roaring in the darkness. Mark how unflinchingly they received the pelting iron hail into their bosoms and how they breasted the foe! See how nobly they supported, and how heroically they fell with their devoted leader; count the dead; pick up the severed limbs; number the wounds; measure the blood spilled ; and remember why and wherefore and in whose cause the negro thus fought and suffered, and then say, if you can, 'This is the white man's Government.' Go to Port Hudson, go to Richmond, go to Petersburg, go anywhere and every-where — to every battle-field where the negro fought, where danger was greatest and death surest — and tell me, if you can, that ' this is the white man's Government.' And then go to Salisbury and Columbia and Andersonville. and as you shudder at the ineffable 30 j Tin: tiiii;t)'-.yi.ytii congress. miseries of those dens, and think of those who ran the dead-line, and were aol shot, but escaped to the woods and were concealed and fed and piloted by the black men, and never once betrayed, but often enabled to escape and return to their friends, and then tell me if ' this is a white man's < rovernment.' " In ancient Rome, when one not a citizen deserved well of the republic, be was rewarded by the rights of citizenship, but we deny them, and here in America — not in the Confederate States of America, where, attempting to found a governmenl upon slavery and the subjection of one race to another, it would have been fitting, if anywhere, but in the United State- of Am< rica, the cardinal principle of whose Government is the equality of all men. After these black men have SO nobly fought to maintain the one and overthrow the other, when they ask us for the □ sary right of suffrage to protect themselves against the rebels they have fought, and with whom they are compelled to live, we coolly reply. -This is the white man's Government.' Nay, more, and worse, we have refused it to them, and allowed it to their and our worst enemies, the rebel-. Sir, from the dim and shadowy aisles of the past, there comes a cry of 'Shame! shame!' and pagan Rome rebukes Christian America. " But no! chiefly, Mr. President, do I advocate this right of the black man to vote because hf has fought the battles of the repub- lic and helped to preserve the Union, but because he is a citizen and a man— one of the people, one of the governed — upon whose consent, if the Declaration of Independence is correct, the just powers of the Governmenl rest; an intelligent being, of whom and for whom God will have an account of us, individually and as a nation; who-, blood IS one with ours, whose destinies are intermingled and run with ours, whose life takes hold on immor- tality with ours, and because this right is necessary to develop bis manhood, elevate his race, and secure for it a better civiliza- tion and a more enlightened and purer Christianity." < Mi the loth of February, Mr. Sumner presented a memorial from George T. Downing, Frederick Douglass, and other colored citizens of the United State-, protesting against the pending con- stitutional amendment a- introducing, for the first time, into the Constitution a granl to disfranchised men on the ground of race or color. In laying this memorial before the Senate, Mr, Sum- said: " 1 do not know that I have at any time presented a BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 393 memorial which was entitled to more respectful consideration than this, from the character of its immediate signer.- and from the vast multitudes they represent. I hope I shall not depart from the proper province of presenting it if I express my entire adhesion to all that it says, and if I take this occasion to entreat the Sen- ate, i f»t hey will not hearken to arguments against the pending- proposition, that they will at least hearken to the voice of these memorialists, representing the colored race of our country." Mr. Williams, of Oregon, argued in favor of the resolution reported by the committee as the best measure before the Senate. He was for proceeding slowly in the work of reconstruction. In his opinion, neither the negro nor his master was now fit to vote. Upon this point he said : " It seems to me there can be little doubt that at this particular time the negroes of the rebel States are unfit to exercise the elective franchise. I have recently con- versed with two officers of the Federal army from Texas, who told me that there, in the interior and agricultural portions of the State, the negroes do not yet know that they are free; and one of the officers told me that he personally communicated to several negroes for the first time the fact of their freedom. Eman- cipation may be known in the towns and cities throughout the South, but the probabilities are that in the agricultural portions of that country the negroes have no knowledge that they are free, or only vague conceptions of their rights and duties as freemen. Sir, give these men a little time; give them a chance to learn that they arc free; give them a chance to accpuire some knowledge of their rights as freemen ; give them a chance to learn that they are independent and can act for themselves; give them a chance to divest themselves of that feeling of entire dependence for sub- sistence and the sustenance of their families upon the landholders of the South, to which they have been so long accustomed ; give them a little time to shake the manacles off of their minds that have just been stricken from their hands, and I will go with the honorable Senator from Massachusetts to give them the right of suffrage. And I will here express the hope that the day is not far distant when every man born upon American soil, within the pah' of civilization, may defend his manhood and his rights as a freeman by that most effective ballot which '"Executes the freeman's will As lightning does the will of God.' 89 4 THE THIE T J -A 7. V Til c<>.\ '< ; // /■/ S 5 ' rocerning the amendment proposed by Mr. Henderson, Mr. Williams said : "All the impassioned declamation and all the vehement assertions of the honorable Senator do not changi atll •-■! the evidence before our eye- that the people of these 1 Fnited States are not prepared to surrender to Congress the absolute righl to determine as to the qualifications of voters in the Respect- ive States, or to adopt the proposition that all persons, without distinction of race or color, shall enjoy political rights and priv- ileges equal to those now possessed by the white people of the country. Sir, some of the States have lately spoken upon that subject. Wisconsin and Connecticut, Northern, loyal, and Repub- lican States, have recently declared thai they would not allow the negroes within their own borders political rights; and is it prob- able that of the thirty-six States, more than six, at the most, would at this time adopt the constitutional amendment proposed by the gentleman ".' " Notwithstanding the temporary darkness of the political sky, Mr. Williams saw brilliant prospects before the country. "This nation, "' said he, "is to live and not die. God has written it among the shining decrees of destiny. Inspired by this hope and animated by this faith, we will take this country through all its presenl troubles and perils to the promised land of perfect unity and peace, where freedom, equality, and justice, the triune and tutelar deity of the American Republic, will rule with righteous- ness a nation 'whose walls shall be salvation and whose gates •praise. 5 " At the close of this speech, the Semite being about to proceed to a vote upon the pending amendment, it was proposed to defer action and adjourn the question over to the following day, for the purpose of affording an opportunity for speeches by Senator- who were not prepared to proceed immediately. Mr. Fessenden, who had the measure in charge, protested against the delays of the Senate. "This subject," .-aid he, "ha- dragged along now for nearly two weeks. [f members desire to address the Senate, they must be prepared to go on and do so withoul a postpone- ment from day to day for the purpose of allowing every gentle- man to make his speech in the morning, and then adjourning early every evening. We shall never get through in thai way. I give notice to gentlemen that 1 shall begin to be a little more quar- relsom< — I do ool know that it will do an) -after to-day. BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 395 On the day following, Mr. Hendricks delivered a speech of considerable length in opposition to the constitutional amend- ment. After having maintained that the proposition did not rest the right of representation upon population, nor upon property, nor upon voters, Mr. Hendricks inquired : " Upon what prin- ciple do Senators propose to adopt this amendment to the Con- stitution? I can understand it if you say that the States shall be represented in the House of Representatives upon their pop- ulation ; I can understand it if you say that they shall be repre- sented upon their voters ; but when you say that one State shall have the benefit of its non-voting population and another State shall not, I can not understand the principle of equity and justice which governs you in that measure. Sir, if it does not stand upon a principle, upon what does it rest? It rests upon a political policy. A committee that had its birth in a party caucus brings it before this body, and does not conceal the fact that it is for party purposes. This measure, if you ever allow the Southern States to be represented in the House of Representatives, will bring them back shorn of fifteen or twenty Representatives; it will bring them back so shorn in their representation that the Repub- lican party can control this country forever; and if you cut off from fifteen to thirty votes for President of the United States in the States that will not vote for a Republican candidate, it may be that you can elect a Republican candidate in 1868." Mr. Hendricks thought that " this proposition was designed to accomplish three objects : first, to perpetuate the rule and power of' a political party ; in the second place, it is a proposition the ten- dency of which is to place agriculture under the control and power of manufactures and commerce forever; and, in the third place, it is intended, T believe, as a punishment upon the Southern States." In reference to changing the basis of representation as a pun- ishment for the Southern States, Mr. Hendricks said: "Now that the war is over; now that the Southern people have laid down their arms; now that they have -ought to come again fully and entirely into the Union; now that they have pledged their honors and their fortunes to be true to the Union and to the flag ; now that they have done all that can be done by a conquered people, is it right, after a war has been fought out, for us to take from them their political equality in this Union for the purpose of punishment? The Senator from Maine, the chairman of the 396 THE THIRTY-NINTH COJVGRE& committee, 3ays thai the righl to control the suffrage is with tlie States, but if the States do nol choose to do right in respect to it. we propose to punish them. You do not punish New York for not letting the foreigner vote until he resides there a certain period. You do not punish [ndiana because she will not allow a foreigner to vote until he has been in the country a year. Tin -i' States arc nut to be punished because they regulate the elective franchise according to their sovereign pleasures; but it' any other State- see tit to deny the right of voting to a class that i- peculiarly guarded and taken care of here, then they arc t" be punished." Referring to the speech of the Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Hendricks asked: " Had the white men of this country a right to establish a Government, and thereby a political commu- nity? Ef so, they had a right to say who should he members of that political community. They had a right to exclude the col- ored man if they saw tit. Sir, I say. in the language of the lamented Douglas, and in the language of President Johnson, this i- the white man's Government, made by the white man for the white man. I am not ashamed to stand behind such distin- guished men in maintaining a sentiment like that. Nor was my judgment on the subject changed the day before yesterday by the lamentations of the Senator from New Hampshire, [Mr. Clark.] sounding through this body like the wailing- of the winds in the dark forest, ' that it is a horrible thing tor a man to say that this i- a white man'.- ( iovcrniiient.' •'.Mr. President, there is a great deal said about the part the colored soldiers have taken in putting down this rebellion — a great deal more than there is any occasion for. or there is any support for in tact or history. This rebellion was put down by the white soldiers of this country." Criticising sentiments toward the s.mtl:. expressed by Senators, Mr. 1 [endricks said : " We hear a good deal said about blood now. Yesterday the Senator from Oregon [Mr. Williams] criticised the President for hi- leniency toward the South. A few days the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Wade] made a severe criticism on the President for hi- leniency, and my colleague asks tor blood. Mr. President, this war commenced with blood; nay, blood was demanded before the war. When the g 1 men and the patriotic. North and South, representing the yearning hearts of the people BASIS OF REP R ES E. \ ' T, I TIOK. 89 7 at home, came here, in the winter and spring of 18G1, in a peace congress, if possible to avoid this dreadful war, right then the Senator from Michigan [Mr. Chandler] announced to his Gov- ernor and the country that this Union was scarcely worth pre- serving without some blood-letting. His cry before the war was for blood. Allow me to say that when the Senator's name is for- gotten because of any thing he says or does in this body, in future time it will be borne down upon the pages of history as the author of the terrible sentiment that the Union of the people that our fathers had cemented by the blood of the Revolution and by the love of the people; that that Union, resting upon compromise and concession, resting upon the doctrine of equality to all sections of the country ; that that Union which brought us so much greatness and power in the three-quarters of a century of our life; that that Union that had brought us so much prosperity and greatness, until we were the mightiest and proudest nation on God's foot- stool ; that that grand Union was not worth preserving unless we had some blood-letting ! " Mr. Chandler, of Michigan, replied : " The Senator from In- diana has arraigned me upon an old indictment for having written a certain letter in 1861. It is not the first time that I have been arraigned on that indictment of ' blood-letting.' I was first ar- raigned for it upon this floor by the traitor John C. Breckinridge ; and I answered the traitor John C. Breckinridge; and after I gave him his answer, he went out into the rebel ranks and fought against our flag. I was arraigned by another Senator from Ken- tucky and by other traitors upon this floor. I expect to be ar- raigned again. I wrote the letter, and I stand by the letter; and what was in it? What was the position of the country when that letter was written? The Democratic party, as an organization, had arrayed itself against this Government — a Democratic traitor in the presidential chair, and a Democratic traitor in every de- partment of this Government; Democratic traitors preaching treason upon this floor, and preaching treason in the hall of the other house; Democratic traitors in your army and in your navy; Democratic traitors controlling every branch of this Government. Your flag was fired upon, and there was no response. The Democratic party had ordained that this Government should be overthrown ; and I, a Senator from the State of Michigan, wrote to the Governor of that State, ' Unless you are prepared to shed 398 THE I'll ///'/T-. YiM'll CONGRi - Ul. mmI for the preservation of this I Government, the Govern- i 1 1< 1 1 1 i- overthrown.' That is all there was to that letter. Thai T -aid, and that I say again ; and 1 tell that Senator it' he is pre- pared tu go down in history with the Democratic traitors who then co iperated with him, I am prepared tu go down on that 'blood-letting 5 letter, and 1 stand by the record as then made." [ A.pplause in the galleries.] On the 19th i>t' February, Mr. Howard, of Michigan, offered an amendment providing thai the right of suffrage .-honld be enjoyed by all persons of AiHcan descent belonging to the following clas those who have been in the military service of the United Stan-, tho.-e who t heard in debate which may affeel their interests and welfare in all future time. "2. Any amendment made at this time will he a partisan amendment. "3. The members of this Congress were not chosen with refer- ence to the subject of constitutional amendment. "4. Whatever amendments are now proposed by Congress are to be submitted to Legislatures, and not to popular conventions in the States; ami most of those Legislatures are to he the one- now in session. "5. In submitting amendments at this time, we invite a dis- pute upon the- ipiestion of the degree <>f legislative assent n< sary to their adoption. If ratified by the Legislatures of less than three-fourths of all the State-, their validity will he denied, and their enforcement resisted." Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, replied to Mr. Buckalew's im- putations against New England. "The Senator gave us to un- derstand that he had not wasted reason, thought, and culture upon the stormy passions engendered by the war, hut now, when reason had resumed her empire, lie had eoine forth to instruct his country. "The Senators from Xew England, unlike the Senator from Pennsylvania, remained not silent during the great civil war through which the nation has passed. They have spoken ; they have spoken for the unity of their country and the freedom of all men. They have spoken tor their country, their whole country, and for the rights of all its people of every race. Their past is secure, and the imputation^ of the Senator from Pennsylvania will pass harmless l.y them. BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 4".; "When the Constitution was formed, New England had eight of the twenty-six Senators — nearly one-third of the body; now she has twelve of the seventy -two Senators — one-sixth of the body. Her power is diminishing in this body and will continue to diminish. When the Constitution was adopted, quite as great inequalities existed among the States as now. The illustrious statesmen who framed the Constitution knew and recognized that fact; they based the Senate upon the States, and upon the equality of the States. They were so determined in that policy of equal State representation in the Senate that they provided that the Constitution should never be amended in that respect without the consent of every State. "The Senator suggests that the Senators from New England are actuated by local interests and love of power in their action regarding the admission of the Representatives of the rebel States. Nothing can be more unjust to those Senators. It is without the shadow of fairness or justice, or the semblance of truth. I can say before God that I am actuated by no local interests, no love of power, in opposing the immediate and unconditional admission of the rebel States into these chambers; and I know my associ- ates from New England too well to believe for a moment that they are actuated by interest or the love of power. Thousands of millions of money have been expended, and hundreds of thou- sands of brave men have bled for the unity and liberty of the republic. I desire — my associates from New England desire — to see these vacant chairs filled at an early day by the Representatives of the States that rebelled and rushed into civil war. We will welcome them here; but before they come it is of vital importance to the country, to the people of all sections, to the interests of all, that all disturbing questions should be forever adjusted, and so adjusted as never again to disturb the unity and peace of the country. It is now the time to settle forever all matters that can cause estrangement and sectional agitations and divisions in the future. Nothing should be left to bring dissensions, and, it may be, civil war again upon our country. The blood poured out to suppress the rebellion must not be shed in vain." Prominent Republican Senators bringing earnest opposition to bear against the proposed constitutional amendment, ami a senti- ment evidently gaining ground that it did not meet the require- ments of the case, caused its friends to urge it with less zeal than 404 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRE& had at first characterized them. Meanwhile, other important propositions coming up from the Committee of Fifteen, which occupied the attention of the Senate, as detailed in a subsequent chapter, the subject of changing the basis of representation was allowed to lie over for nearly a fortnight. ( )•• the : 'Mi of March, the subject being resumed, Mr. Pomeroy addressed the Senate. He feared that the nation was nol ready to adopt a constitutional amendmenl such as the nee 3siti< - of the country required. "This nation," said he, "although severely disciplined, has not yet reached the point of giving to all men their rights by a suffrage amendment : three-fourths of th< St arc not ready. And any patchwork, any 'step toward it' (as said the chairman of the committee) which does not reach it. \ fear to take, because but one opportunity will ever be afforded as to step at all ; and lost opportunities arc seldom repeated." Mr. Pomeroy did not think the case was without remedy, however, since " the last constitutional amendment embraced all, gave the most ample powers, even it' they did not exist before; for, after having secured the freedom of all men wherever the old flag floats, it provided that Congress might 'secure' the same by ' appropriate legislation.' " What more could it have said? And who are better judges of appropriate legislation than the very men who first passed the amendment and provided for this very case".' "Sir, what is 'appropriate legislation' on the subject, namely, securing the freedom of all men? It can be nothing less than throwing about all men the essential safeguards of the Constitu- tion. The 'righl to hear arms' is not plainer taught or more efficient than the right to carry ballots. And if appropriate legislation will secure the one. so can it also the other. And if both are necessary, and provided for in the Constitution as now amended, why, then, let us close the question of congressional legislation. " Let u- not take counsel of our own tears, but of our hopes; not of our enemies, hut of our friends. By all the memories which cluster about the pathway in which we have been led; by all the sacrifices, suffering, blood, and tears of the conflict ; by all the hopes of a freed country and a disenthralled race; yea, as a legacy for mankind, let us now secure a tree representative re- public, based upon impartial suffrage and that human equality BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 405 made clear in the Declaration of Independence. To this enter- tainment let us invite our countrymen and all nations, committing our work, when done, to the verdict of posterity and the blessing of Almighty God." On the day following, Mr. Saulsbury took the floor. His speech, ostensibly against the pending measure, was a palliation of the conduct of the Southern States, and a plea for their right of being admitted to representation in Congress. All that the Senator said directly upon the subject under discussion was con- tained in the following paragraph : " Now, suppose your constitutional amendment passes. If it passes, it ought to meet with the respect of some body. If this constitutional amendment shall be presented to the States who are now represented in Congress, and shall be adopted by simply three-fourths of those States, is there any body that will have the least respect for it ? Then suppose you could go with the bayonet — which I think now, under the brighter dawn of a better day which we begin to realize, you are not going to have the liberty to do — suppose you were to go with the bayonet and present it to the other eleven States, and they, acting under duress, not as free agents and as free men, cotdd get some people in their section so miserable and poor in spirit and craven in soul as to vote to adopt in their Legislatures such an amendment, would it com- mand the respect of any body in this land? Xot at all. Open your doors, sir; admit the Representatives of the Southern States to seats in this body; require no miserable degrading oath of them ; administer to them the very oath that you first took when you entered this body, and the only oath that the Constitution of the United States requires, and the only oatli which Congi.— has any right to exact, an oath to support the Constitution of the United State.- ; and then, if you think your Constitution is defect- ive, if you think it needs further amendment, or if you have not sufficiently exhausted your bowels of mercy and love and kind- ness toward your sable friends whose shadows darken this gallery every day, submit your amendments to the States represented in the Congress of the United States; and if they choose, acting freely as citizens of their States, to agree to your amendments, it will command the respect of themselves, but still it will Dot com- mand mine. I should despise a people who would voluntarily assume so degrading a position." Q6 THE rif(i;T)-.YI.\TII CONGRESS On the 7th of March, Mr. Sumner occupied the attention of the Senate for three hours, with a Be id speech in opposition to the proposed constitutional amendment. He used very strong language to express his abhorrence of the proposition: "It re- minds me of that leg of mutton served for dinner on the road from London to Oxford, which I>r. Johnson, with characteristic energy, described 'as bad as bad could be, ill-fed, ill-killed, ill- kept, and ill-dressed.' So this compromise — I adopt the sayii of an eminent friend, who insists that it ran nol 1"' called an 'amendment,' but rather a 'detriment' to the Constitution— is as bad as bad can be; and even for its avowed purpose it is uncertain, loose, cracked, and rickety. Regarding it as a proposition from I .ngreas to meel the unparalleled exigencies of the present hour, it is no better than the 'muscular abortion' sent into the world by the 'parturient mountain.' But it is only when we look at the chance of good from it that this proposition is ' muscipular.' Regarding it in every other aspect it is infinite, inasmuch as it makes the Constitution a well-spring of insupportable thralldom, and once more lift- the sluices of blood destined to run until it (Mine-- t<» the horse's bridle. Adopt it. and you will put million- of fellow -citizens under the ban of excommunication j you will hand them over to a new anathema maranatha : you will declare that they have do political rights ' which white men are bound to respect,' thus repeating in a new form that abomination which is blackened tie- name of Taney. Adopt it. and you will stim- ulate anew the war of race upon race. Slavery it-elf wa- a war of race upon race, and this is only a new form of this terrible war. The proposition i- as hardy as it is gigantic; for it take- no account of the moral sense of mankind, which i- the same as if in rearing a monument we took no account of the law of grav- itation. It is the paragon ami master-piece of ingratitude, show- ing more than anv other act of history what i- so often charged and we so fondly deny, that republics arc ungrateful. The freedmen ask for bread, and you -end them a stone. With piteous voice they ask for protection. Von thrust them hack unprotected into the cniel den of their former masters. Such an tempt, thus had a- had can I.e. thu- abortive for all g 1. thus perilous, thu- pregnant with a war of race upon race, thus shocking to the moral 3ense, and thu- treacherous to those whom we are bound to protect, 'an not be otherwise than shameful. BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 407 Adopt it, and you will cover the country with dishonor. Adopi it, and you will fix a stigma upon the very name of republic. As to the imagination, there are mountains of light, so are there mountains of darkness; and this is one of them. It is the very Koh-i-noor of blackness. Adopt this proposition, and you will be little better than the foul Harpies who defiled the feast that was spread. The Constitution is the feast spread for our country, and you are now hurrying to drop into its text a political ob- scenity, and to spread on its page a disgusting ordure, ' ' Defiling all you find. And parting leave a loathsome stench behind.' ' Having presented his objections to the pending proposition, at great length, he summed them up as follows: "You have seen, first, how this proposition carries into the Constitution itself the idea of Inequality of Rights, thus defiling that unspotted text ; secondly, how it is an express sanction of the acknowledged tyranny of taxation without representation ; thirdly, how it is a concession to State Rights at a moment when we are recovering from a terrible war waged against us in the name of State Right-; fourthly, how it is the constitutional recognition of an oligarchy, aristocracy, caste, and monopoly founded on color ; fifthly, how it petrifies in the Constitution the wretched pretensions of a white man's government ; sixthly, how it assumes what is false in con- stitutional law, that color can be a ' qualification ' for an elector ; seventhly, how it positively ties the hands of Congress in fixing the meaning of a republican government, so that, under the guar- antee clause, it will be constrained to recognize an oligarchy, aris- tocracy, caste, and monopoly founded on color, together with the tyranny of taxation without representation, as not inconsistent with such a government; eighthly, how it positively ties the hands of Congress in completing and consummating the abolition of slavery according to the second clause of the constitutional amendment, so that it can not, for this purpose, interfere with the denial of the elective franchise on account of color; ninthly, how it in- stalls recent rebels in permanent power over loyal citizens; and, tenthly, how it shows forth, in unmistakable character, as a compromise of human rights, the most immoral, indecent, and utterly shameful of any in our history. All this you have seen, with pain and sorrow, I trust. Who that is moved to sympathy 408 THE Tlfli;T)--M.YTII CONGRESS. for his fellow-man f age, about one million six hundred thousand. Nearly one-third of that white population over twenty year- of age has perished. The actual destruction of the black popula- tion since I860 has been at least twenty-live per cent, of the whole population. The population of the South has been so destroyed and wasted and enfeebled in consequence of this war, that I do not for one, I confess, feel those apprehensions which some entertain that, if they are admitted to representation under the Constitution just as it stands, they will have any increase of Representatives. My opinion is, that after the next census their representation will be diminished unless emigration from the North or from Europe shall till up their population and increase it so as to entitle it to an increased representation." Mr. Doolittle argued that the amendment was capable of being evaded by a State disposed to disfranchise colored men: "I do not see," said he, '-that there is any thing in the resolution which would prevent Smith Carolina or any other State from passing a law that any person who was horn free, or whose ancestors were free, should exercise the elective franchise, and none others. That would exclude the whole of the colored population, and yet would leave the State to have its full representation. There i- nothing which would prevent the State of South Carolina or any other State from saying that only those persons who had served in the military service, and their descendants, should exercise the elective franchise. That would exclude the colored population, and the Union population, ton. if they refused to serve in the army." Mr. Doolittle closed hi- remarks by advocating an amendment basing representation upon actual voters under State law-. Mr. Morrill, of Maine, addressed the Senate in support of the proposition to amend the Constitution. lie said: "Some amendment is rendered absolutely necessary, unless the American BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 409 Constitution is to give to the nation the expression of utterly contradictory sentiments, saying involuntary servitude no longer exists, in one portion of it; in another, bearing on its front in marked contrast, that three-fifths only of the 'other persons' are to still constitute the basis of representation." He recalled a time not far remote when amendments of the Constitution were adopted by those who now oppose any alter- ation of the fundamental law: "I do not forget," said he, "that within the last five years a class of statesmen and politicians, who now resist all propositions for an amendment of the Con- stitution, here and elsewhere urged and demanded amendments of the Constitution of the nation. What Avere the circumstances then? Several States threatened to dissolve this Union; several States had taken an attitude hostile to the Government of the country. They demanded the extension, the protection, and the perpetuation of slavery; and upon that question the country was divided. Then amendments to the Constitution were pro- posed without number here, elsewhere, and every-where. Amend- ments to the Constitution seemed to be the order of the day. To what end, and for what purpose? To increase the power in the hands of the few who wielded the political power in those States, and who were demanding it. Referring to an argument . presented by the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Morrill remarked : " But yesterday we had an additional reason given why this amendment should not be adopted; and that was that it was wholly unnecessary, because, it was said, by the events which were transpiring in the coun- try in regard to the recent slave population, there need be no apprehension of excess of representation based on the whole 'numbers' instead of three-fifths, from the important fact that they were passing away. If I gather the force of that argument, it is this: we are to base no legislation and no action upon the idea that this race, recently slave, now free, is part and parcel of the American people, the objecl of our care, solicitude, and protection. They are passing away — dying; let them be repre- sented as slaves now, and let them never enter into the basis hereafter of the representative system. Sir, that is the old argument — an argument worthy of another period than this. Our people have been an inexorable people, in some respects, in regard to the races that have been within their power. In the 4-10 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. march of our civilization across the continent, the iron heel of that civilization has rested upon the Indian, and he is passing away. We seem to contemplate the probable extinction of the Indians from our limits with composure. He is a nomad; he is a savage; 1m- is a barbarian; lie is uol within our morals or our code of law; lie i- nol withiu the pale of the Constitution, but Hit- upon the verge of it. outside our protection, the subject of our caprices, and sometimes, I think, of our avarice. And, now, if any consequence is t<> lie attached to the remark of the honorable Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. Doolittle] yesterday, this 'inferior race' is not to he the subject of our solicitude. They, too, are passing away; it is not worth while to change your Constitution in regard to them. Let them he represented a- two- fifths slaves on the old basis until they shall have perished, and then your Constitution will need no amendment. The law- of a fearful antagonism of superior ami inferior races are expected to accomplish what, if American statesmanship does noi incite, it contemplates with apparent satisfaction." Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, profoundly regretted to see in- dications that the amendment was doomed to defeat. He said: "My heart, my conscience, and my judgment approve of this amendment, and I support it without qualification or reservation. I approve of the purpose for which it is introduced. ] approve it because I believe it would sweep the loyal States by an im- mense majority; that no public man could stand before the people of the loyal State- in opposition to it, or oppose it with any force whatever. I approve it because I believe if it were put in the Constitution every black man in America, before live year- could pass, would he enfranchised and weaponed with the ballol fa- the protection of life, liberty, and property." Referring to the opposition brought to hear against the measure by hi- colleague, Mr. Wilson said: " We arc also told that it is immoral and indecent, an offense to reason and to conscience. Sir, this measure came into Congress with the .-auction of the Committee on Reconstruction, composed :>- it is of men "1" indi- vidual honor and personal character, and as true to the cau-e of tin. colored race a- any other men here ^v elsewhere. It comes to the Smate by an overwhelming vote of the House of Repre- sentatives. It i- sustained by ninety-nine out of every hundred of the public journal- that brought the present Administration BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 411 into power, and wore it submitted to the American people, it would, I am quite sure, be sustained by men in the loyal States who believe that the soldier who fought the battles of the re- public is the equal of the traitor who fought against the country. I see no compromise in it, no surrender in it, no defilement of the Constitution in it, no implication that can be drawn from it against the rights or interests of the colored race. On the con- trary, I believe the black men, from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, would go for it and rejoice to see it adopted." Mr. Wilson described the results that would follow the adop- tion of this amendment. "Being incorporated in the Constitu- tion, the practical effect would be this, and only this: it would raise up a party in every one of these States immediately in favor of the enfranchisement of the colored race. That party might be animated and influenced by the love of power, by pride, and by ambition. These men might begin the contest, for they would not like to yield the power of their States in Congress; they might begin the battle animated by no high and lofty motives; but as soon as the discussion commenced, it would address itself to the reason, to the heart, and to the conscience of the people. The advocates of negro enfranchisement would themselves speed- ily grow up to believe in the justice, equity, and right of giving the ballot to the black men. There would be discussion on every square mile of the rebel States. Appeals would be made to their pride, to their ambition, to their justice, to their love of fair play, to their equity; all the interests and passions, and all the loftier motives that can sway, control, and influence men, would impel them to action. They would cooperate with the friends of free- dom throughout the country; would seek their counsel and aid. They would be the left wing of the great army of freedom, of elevation, and improvement in the country. We would give them our influence, our voices, and our aid in fighting the battle of enfranchisement. They would have the support and the prayers of the poor black men of the South; and before five years had passed away, there would not be a rebel State that did not en- franchise the bondman." Referring to the policy of "enlightened Christian States," in refusing the right <>f suffrage to the negro, Mr. Wilson said: "After all the fidelity and heroic conduct of these men, prejudice, party spirit, and conservatism, and all that is base and mean on r U TIIETHIETY-.YLYTli CONGREL T earth, combine to tiny the right of suffrage to the brave soldier of the republic. God alone can forgive such meanness; humanity can uot. Alter what has taken place, i- taking place, I can not hope that the constitutional amendment proposed by the Senator from Missouri will receive a majority of three-fourths of the \ of the States. I, therefore, can uot risk the cause of an emanci- pated rare upon it. In the present condition of the nation we musl aim at practical results, not to establish political theories, however beautiful and alluring they may be." It was the understanding of the Senate that the discussion would close and the vote would be taken on the 9th of March. On that day Mr. Fessenden took the floor in reply to objections urged by those who had previously spoken. In reply to the ob- jection that the advocate- of this measure were wrong in attempting to accomplish by indirection that which they could not accomplish directly, Mr. Fessenden said: "If negro suffrage can be secured by the indirect action of an amendment of the Constitution which appeals to the interest of those who have hitherto been and who arc yet probably the ruling class among whom this large popula- tion i:- situated, and with whom they live, it will be far b than to run the risk of all the difficulties that might arise from a forcible imposition, which would create ill-feeling, generate dis- cord, and produce, perhaps undying animosities." To the objection urged by Mr. Hendricks, that it was intended for a party purpose, Mr. Fessenden replied: " Has he any right to attack the motives of those who support it'.' Must it nee, -- - rily be attended with benefit to a particular party? It so, it is necessarily attended with injury to another party, of which the honorable Senator is a prominent member; and it would as well become me to say that his opposition to it is for party purp and for party objects as it became him to say that it- introduction and its support were intended for party purposes. It is well known here and out of this Senate that the honorable Senator from Indiana is a gentleman who never, in any of hi- addi here, says any thing that is in the slightest degree calculated to effeel a party purpose, and ha- SO little of that party feeling which presses itself upon other men a- to be hardly suspected of being a party man at all." [ Laughter.] Mr. Fessenden thus replied to the objections of two opponents of the measure: "The Senator [Mr. Hendricks] objected to this B, ISIS OF F E I ' U ES E. \ ' T. I HON. 4 13 measure upon another ground, and that was, that in one sense it was intended as a punishment, and that was wrong; and in an- other sense it was what lie called a bribe, a reward, and that was wrong. If he considers it a punishment, he differs very much from his leading associate on this question, the honorable Senator from Massachusetts, [Mr. Sumner,] for he does not consider it a punishment at all. The Senator from Massachusetts says there is nothing punitive in it. On the contrary, it is a reward to these States; it is conferring power upon them; it is strengthening power in the hands of the whites of the South, and only oppress- ing the colored race. Behold how doctors disagree ! They ope- rate upon the same patient, and are operating at the same time, with different remedies and in different directions. " Suppose it is a punishment, and suppose it is a bribe, a re- ward; it does not differ very much from the principle upon which all criminal legislation is founded, to say the least of it. We punish men when they do wrong. I never heard that it was an objection to legislation that it punished those who perpetrate a wrong. I never heard that it was an objection to legislation that it held out rewards to those who did right." Referring to Mr. Buckalew's argument, Mr. Fessenden re- marked : " Eight out of sixteen pages of his speech were devoted to abuse of New England, and to showing that New England had too much power, and that it ought to be abridged in some way. " He closed those remarks by saying (for which I was very much obliged to him) that he did not despise New England. We are happy to know it. I will say to him that New England does not despise him that I am aware of. [Laughter.] I am not aware that it is really affected in any degree by the elaborate at- tack of eight pages which he delivered against New England on that occasion, and which he thought were views so important that he could not be justified if he failed to give them utterance." Of Mr. Sumner's part in the debate, Mr. Fessenden said: "On this subject I think he has occupied about eight or nine hours of the time of the Senate, and on the last occasion, w r hile saving that principles were to be considered, he has undertaken to designate the character of this proposed amendment. I have already stated who the men were who were in favor of it. What does the Sen- ator call it? I have chosen a few, and but a few, flowers of rhetoric from the speech of the honorable Senator : ' Compromise 4H THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. of human rights,' 'violating the national faith,' 'dishonoring the name of there public,' 'bad mutton,' ' new muscipular abortion,' 'a new anathema maranatha,' 'abomination,' 'paragon and mas- terpiece of ingratitude,' 'abortive for all good,' 'shocking to the moral sense,' 'the very Koh-i-noor of blackness,' 'essential un- cleanliness,' ' disgusting ordure,' 'loathsome stench;' and the men who supporl it, if they pass it, will 1"' ' Harpies,' ' Pontius Pilate, with Judas Iscariot on his back.' "The Senator from Massachusetts make- several points against this proposition, to which my answer is the same. His first point is, that it recognizes ' the idea of inequality of rights founded on race or color.' I deny in toto the correctness, or even the plausi- bility, to a man of sense, any point that he has raised on the subject. There is not one of them that is tenable; and more than that, there is not one of them but what is jusl as tenable against the proposition he is in favor of to found representation on voters a< this. What lawyer in the world ever heard that a denial i- an admission? What lawyer ever heard that a penalty is a permission? By this proposition, wo say -imply this: 'If, in the exercise of the power that you have under the Constitu- tion, you make an inequality of rights, then you are to suffer such and such consequences.' What sane man could ever pretend that that was saying, ' Make an inequality of' rights and we will sanction it?' We do not deny — nobody can deny — that the power may he thus exercised. What we say by this amendment is, 'If you attempt to exercise it in this wrongful way, you create an inequality of rights; and if you do create an inequality of rights' — not we, hut you — 'if you undertake to do it under the power which exists in the Constitution, then the consequence follows that you are punished by a loss of representation.' That is all that is in it." Having replied to the most of Mr. Sumner's objections in order, Mr. Pessenden said: "The last point of the Senator is, that thi- proposition is 'a compromise of human rights, the most immoral, indecent, and utterly shameful in our history.' "Mr. President, 1 stand rebuked, bui 1 do not feel so had as I might. The Committee of Fifteen, the friends and associates of the honorable Senator, -land relinked. More than two-thirds <>f the House of Representatives and a large majority of this body, all the political friends and associates of the Senator, stand BASIS OF REPRESEXTATION. 415 charged with proposing a compromise of human rights the most immoral, indecent, and shameful in our history! All I can say with regard to that is, that neither on its face, in its effect, nor in its intention is it any compromise. None such was dreamed of." Mr. Fessenden thus described the remarkable combination of Senators opposing the amendment : " I can not close, however, without saying how amusing seems to me the character of the opposition to this joint resolution. That opposition is composed of men of all shades of opinion. The Democrats on the other side of the House oppose it because they say it is unjust to the Southern States ; my honorable friends who have been some time with us are opposed to it because — I do not know why, except that the President is opposed to it, and I believe that is the ground ; my honorable friend from Massachusetts objects because it is unjust to the negro. Why, sir, just imagine all the gen- tlemen opposed to this resolution met in caucus together, and looking around at each other, would there not be a smile on all their faces to see what company they had fallen into? I think Senators would be surprised to find themselves there, and, like the countryman looking at the reel in the bottle, they would consider how the devil they did get there. [Laughter.] It would be a very strange meeting; and yet they are all against this proposition." After a running debate between several Senators, the vote was taken upon the substitute proposed by Mr. Henderson as a constitutional amendment, viz. : " Xo State, in prescribing the qualifications requisite for electors therein, shall discriminate against any person on account of color or race." The amendment was lost — yeas, 10 ; nays, 37. The question was then taken on Mr. Sumner's substitute, which was simply a joint resolution providing ' there shall be no oligarchy, aristocracy, caste, or monopoly invested with peculiar privileges, and no denial of rights, civil or political, on account of color or race, anywhere within the United States." This resolution was lost — yeas, 8; nays, 39. The vote was then taken on the amendment proposed by Mr. Yates, providing that no State shall make or enforce any distinction between citizens of the United States on account of race or color, and that all citizens shall hereafter be protected in the exercise of all civil and political rights, including the right 416 THE TlllUT\--\l\TH CONGRESS. of suffrage. This amendment was lost — yea-. 7; nays, 38. The vote was then talon upon the original amendment as reported by the joint Committee of Fifteen. The following was the result: Yeas — Messrs Anthony, Chandler, Clark. Conness, Cragin, Creswell, I - senden, Poster, Grimes, Harris, Howe, Kirkw 1. Lane of Indiana, McDon- ald. Morgan, Morrill, Nye, Poland, Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Trumbull, Wade, William-, and Wilson — 25, Nays — Messrs Brown, Buckalew, Cowan, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Guthrie, Henderson, Hendricks, Johnson, Lam- of Kansas, Nesmith, Norton, Pomeroy, Riddle, Saulshury, Stewart, Stockton, Snmner, Van Winkle. Willey, and Yates— 22. Absent — Messrs. Foot, Howard, and Wright — 3. Two thirds of the Senator- not having voted for the joint resolution, it was lost. The defeat of the proposed constitutional amendment was accomplished by the combination of five " Rad- ical" Senators with six "Conservatives," elected as Republicans, whose vote, added to the regular Democratic strength, prevented its adoption by the required constitutional majority of two-thirds. The advocates of constitutional reform, though foiled in this attempt, were not disheartened. Their defeat taught them the important Lesson that pet measures and favorite theories must he abandoned or modified in order to secure the adoption of some constitutional amendment to obviate difficulties of which all felt and acknowledged the existence. Meanwhile other measures, designed to lead to the great end of reconstruction, were demanding and receiving the consideration of Congress. BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 417 CHAPTER XVI. REPRESENTATION OF THE SOUTHERN STATES. Concurrent Resolution — A "Venomous Fight" — Passage in the House — The Resolution in the Senate — "A Political Wrangle" Deprecated — Importance of the Question — "A Straw in a Storm" — Policy of the President — Conversation between two Senators — Mr. Nye's Advice to Rebels—" A Dangerous Power "— " Was Mr. Wade once a Seces- sionist?" — Garrett Davis' Programme for the President — "Useless yet Mischievous" — The Great Question Settled. IT was understood when the Committee of Fifteen introduced the joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment relating to the basis of representation, that this was only one of a series of measures which they thought essential to the work of reconstruction, and which they designed to propose at a p roper time. In pursuance of this plan, on the 20th of February, the day after the veto of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, and while the amendment of the basis of reconstruction was pending in the Senate, Mr. Stevens brought before the House, from the Com- mittee of Fifteen, a " Concurrent Resolution concerning: the Insur- rectionary States," as follows: "Be it resolved by the House of Representatives, (the Senate concurring,) That in order to close agitation upon a question which seems likely to dis- turb the action of the Government, as well as to quiet the uncertainty which is agitating the minds of the people of the eleven States which have been declared to be in insurrection, no Senator or Representative shall be admitted into either branch of Congress from any of said States until Con- gress shall have declared such State entitled to such representation." After the reading of this resolution, Mr. Grider, of Kentucky, a member of the Committee of Fifteen, offered the following minority report : 27 418 the mi irry-M.y tii congre& "The minority of the Committee on Reconstruction, on the part of the House, beg leave to report that — : t i < 1 committee have directed an inquiry to be made as to the condition and loyalty of tin- State of r J -e. There has 1 n a large amount of evidence taken, some part of it conducing to iw that at Borne locality - onally there ha 1 some irregularities and temporary disaffection ; yet the main direction and weight of the testi- iii. >ji \ are ample and conclusive to Bhow that the great body of the people in said Star^ are not only loyal and willing, but anxious, to have and main- tain amicable, sincere, and patriotic relations with the General Govern- ment Such being the state of the fact6, and inasmuch as under the cei of I860 Congress passed a law which was approved in 1863, using the ratio and apportioning to Tennessee and all the other States representation; and inasmuch as Tennessee, disavowing insurrectionary pur] - disloyalty, has, under the laws and organic law of said State, regularly elected her members and Senators to the Congress of the United States, in conformity tu the laws and Constitution of the United States, and said members are here asking admission; and inasmuch as the House by the Constitution is the 'judge of the election, returns, and qualification of its members,' con- sidering these facts and principles, we offer the follov • ilution, to-wit: "Resolved, That the State of Tennessee is entitled to representation in the Thirty-ninth Congress, and the Representatives elected from and by said >tate are hereby admitted to take their seats therein upon being qualified by oath according to law." Mr. Stevens then said: "Having heard an ingenious speech upon that side of the question, and not intending to make any speech upon this side, as I hope our friends all understand a question which has agitated not this body only, hut other por- tions of the community, I propose t<> ask for the question. I think I may say without impropriety, that until yesterday there was an earnest investigation int<> the condition ,»t' Tennessee, to whether by act of Congress we could admit that State to a condition id' representation here, ami admit it- members to seats here; hut since yesterday there has arisen a state of things which the committee deem puts it out of their power to proceed further without surrendering a great principle; without the loss of all their dignity ; without surrendering the rights of this body to the usurpation of another power. I call the previous question." Strenuous efforts were made by the Democratic minority to de- feat the proposed joint resolution by means of " dilatory motion-." Repeated motions were made to adjourn, to excuse certain mem- bers from voting, and to call the House, on all of which the y. - and nays were called. This "parliamentary tactics" consumed many hour-. The minority seemed resolved to make the pas- B. ISIS OF REPR ES /:. \ ' T. 1 TTOjY. 4 19 sage of the resolution a question of physical endurance. In reply to a proposition of Mr. Eldridge, of the minority, that they would allow business to proceed if debute should be allowed, Mr. Stevens said : " It is simply the return of the rebels of 1 861. I sat thirty-eight hours under this kind of a fight once, and 1 have no objections to a little of it now. I am ready to sit for forty hours." Late in the evening, a member of the minority proposed thai the House should take a recess for an hour, that the door-keeper might have the hall fitted up as a dormitory. From indications, lie thought such accommodations would be necessary. At length, Mr. Eldridge said : " We know our weakness and the strength and power of the numbers of the majority. We have not had the assistance which we expected from the other side of the House in our effort to obtain the privilege of debating the reso- lution. We know perfectly well that it has become a question of physical endurance. We know perfectly well that we can not stand out against the overpowering majority of this House any great length of time. We know if the majority will it, the reso- lution will pass without debate. We have done all we could. We therefore yield to that power, and throw die responsibility of this most extraordinary, this most revolutionary measure, upon the majority of the House." To this Mr. Stevens answered : " The gentlemen accept their situation just as Jeff. Davis did his — because they can not help it. [Laughter.] I confess, sir, for so small a number, they have made a most venomous fight." The vote was then taken upon the concurrent resolution, which passed the House — yeas, 109; nays, 40. The hopes which had arisen in the minds of the minority that a considerable number of Republicans would permanently sep- arate themselves from the party that elected them, and adhere to the policy and fortunes of the President, were disappointed. The imprudence of the President himself, in making his unfortunate speech of the 22d of February, tended to unite the Republicans in Congress against his policy, and render fruitless the efforts of his new Democratic friends in his favor. On the 23d of February, Mr. Fessenden proposed that the pending constitutional amendment should give way, to enable the Senate to consider the concurrent resolution passed by the House concerning the representation of the Southern States. 420 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS Mr. Sherman thought it would be better and wiser to allow this matter to lie over far a few days. He though! it best not to press this "declaration of political opinion" while the public mind and Senators themselves were more or less affected by sur- rounding circumstances. " I think/' said he, "that we ought uot to postpone :ill the important business now pending in Congress for the purpose of getting into a political wrangle with the President." Mr. Fessenden replied: "The Senator from Ohio says we are getting up a political wrangle with the President of the United States. Winn the President of the United States tells Congn-- that it is transcending its proper limits of authority, that it has nothing to do in the way of judgment upon the great question of reconstructing the rebel States, and Congress assumes to express it- own sense upon that question, I think it is hardly a proper term to apply to such a state of things. I am not aware that there has been any effort anywhere to get up a political wrangle or engage in a political wrangle with the President. Certainly I have not. Xo man has ever heard me -peak of him except in terms of respect, in my place here and elsewhere. "I am not sensible myself of any excitement that would pre- vent my speaking upon this question precisely in the style which I deem it deserves. I am not carried away by passion. 1 have reflected, and I am ready to express my opinion upon the great question at issue; and the Senator will allow me to say that, in my judgment, the sooner the judgment of Congress is expressed, the better. " He talks about important business to he done by this Con- gress. Sir, is there any thing more important than to settle the question whether the Senate and the House of Representative-, of the United State- have or have not something to say in rela- tion to the condition of the late Confederate State-, and whether it i- proper to admit Senators and Representatives from them'.' It' the President i- right in his assumption — for the assumption is a very clear on« — that we have nothing to -ay, we ought to admit these men at once, it' they come here with proj>er credentials, and not keep them waiting outside the door." Mr. Sherman -aid: " In my judgment, the event- that trans- pired yesterday are too fresh in the mind of every Senator not to have had some influence upon him, and I think it as well BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. .; 21 to allow the influence of those events to pass away. I do not wish now myself, nor do I wish any Senator here, to reply to what was said yesterday by the President of the United States. I would prefer that the Senate of the United States, the only legislative body which can deliberate fully and freely without any limitation on the right of debate, should deliberate, reflect, and act calmly after the excitement of the events of the last two or three days has passed off." Mr. Howe, of Wisconsin, remarked: "If there be passion and excitement in the country at this present time, I do n<»t hold my- self as an individual responsible for any share of it; and I am here to say that if I know myself — and if I do not know myself nobody about me knows me — I am as competent to consider this particular question to-day as I was the day before yesterday or last week, and, so far as my judgment informs me, quite as com- petent to consider it as I expect to be next week or the week after. And when the Senator from Ohio asks me to vote against proceeding to the consideration of any measure, either because I distrust my own fitness to consider it, or distrust the fitness of my associates about me, I must respectfully decline, not because I care particularly whether we take up this measure to-day or an- other day, but because I ask the Senate to vindicate their own course as individual men, and to say that they are not to be swept from the seat of judgment by what is said, or can be said, by the first magistrate of the nation, or by the lowest and the last mag- istrate of the nation." The Senate, by a vote of 26 to 19, agreed to proceed to consider the concurrent resolution proposed by the Committee of Fifteen, which had already passed the House of Representatives. Mr. Fessenden advocated the resolution in a speech of consid- erable length. He presented extracts from the President's speech of the day before, in which he had arrayed himself against the right of Congress to decide whether a rebel State is in condition to be represented. Mr. Fessenden considered the pending resolution as "transcend- ing in importance the question of the amendment of the Consti- tution, which had been under discussion for several days." He deemed the resolution necessary now, "in order that Congress may assert distinctly its own rights and its own powers; in order that there may be no mistake anywhere, in the mind of the Ex- THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS ecutive or in the minds of the people of this country ; that Con- gress, under tin- circumstances of this case, with tlii- attempted limitation of it- powers with regard t<» it- own organization, is prepared to say to the Executive and to the country, respectfully but firmly, over this subject they have, and they mean to i ser- ci» . the most full and plenary jurisdiction. We will judge tor ourselves, not only upon credentials and the character of men and the position of nun. but upon the position of the State- which sent those men here. In other words, to use the language of the Presidenl again, when the question is to be decided, whether they obey the Constitution, whether they have a fitting constitution of their own, whether they are loyal, whether they are prepared to obey the laws as a preliminary, as the President says it is, to their admission, we will say whether those preliminary require- ments have been complied with, and not he, and nobody but ourselves." Mr. Pessenden made an extended argument on the subject of reconstruction, affirming that while the people of the rebel States had not passed from under the jurisdiction of the I nited States Government, yet having no existence as States with rights in the Union and rights to representation in Congress. " My judgment is," s:iid he, " thai we hold the power ever the whole subject in our hands, that it i- our duty to hold it in our hands, and to ]•■ • ard it as a matter of the most intense interest to the whole people, involving the good of the whole people, calling for our most careful consideration, and to be adjudged without passion, without temper, without any of that feeling which may be sup- posed to have arisen out of the unexampled state of things through which we have passed." < >n the 26th of February, Mr. Sherman addressed the Senate on the pending concurrent resolution. He approved the princi- ple but doubted the expediency of now reaffirming it. " I regard it." said he, "as a mere straw in a storm, thrown in at an inop- portune moment ; the mere assertion of a naked right which has never yet been disputed, and never can be successfully j a mere • Tiion of a right that we have over and over again asserted. My idea is that the true way to assert this power is to exercise it, and that it was only necessary for Congress to exercise that power in order to meet all these complicated difficulties." Mr. Sherman regarded the President's speech as humiliating BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. .' r 23 and unworthy of his high office, A part of the speech he char- acterized as "the product of resentment, hatched by anger and passion, and hurled, without reflection, at those he believed wished to badger and insult him." Mr. Sherman favored the prompt restoration of Tennessee. "I think our first duty," said he, " is at once to prepare a mode and manner by which she may be admitted into the Union upon such terms and conditions as will make her way back the way of pleasantness and peace." Of the general question of reconstruction he said: "If I had any power in arranging a plan, I would mark the line as broad and deep between the loyal people who stood at our side and the rebels who fought against us as between heaven and hell." "How can you do it?" asked Mr. Howard. " Whenever loyal men," replied Mr. Sherman, " present a State organization, complying with such terms and conditions and tests of loyalty as you may prescribe, and will send here loyal Repre- sentatives, I would admit them ; and whenever rebels send or come here, I would reject them." " I fear the storm," said Mr. Sherman, near the conclusion of his speech. "I fear struggles and contentions in these eleven States, unless there is some mode by which the local power of those States may be put in loyal hands, and by which their voices may be heard here in council ami in command, in deliberation and debate, as of old. They will come back here shorn of their undue political power, humbled in their pride, with a conscious- ness that one man bred under free institutions i- as good, at least, as a man bred under slave institutions. I want to see the loyal people in the South, if they are few. trusted; if they arc many, give them power. Prescribe your conditions, but let them come back into the Union upon such terms as you may prescribe. Open the door for them. I hope we may see harmony restored in this great Union of ours; that all these States and all these Territories may be here in council for the common good, and that at as speedy a moment as is consistent with the public safety." Mi-. Dixon addressed the Senate in opposition to the concurrent resolution, and in favor of the policy of the President. " Ii is my belief," said he, "that what is known as the policy of the President for the restoration of the late seceded States in this Government is the correct policy. I believe it is the only safe 4H TIIE THIRTY-Js'l.XTll CON&RESS. policy/' Having been requested to state that policy, Mr. Dixon said : " It contemplates a careful, cautious, discriminating admission of a loyal representation from loyal States and districts in the appropriate House of Congress, by the separate action of each, every case to be considered by itself and decided on its own merits. It recognizes the right of every loyal State and district to be repre- sented by loyal men in Congress. It draw- the true line of dis- tinction between traitors and true men. It furnishes to the State- lately in rebellion the strongest possible inducement to loyalty and fidelity to the Government. It ' makes treason odious/ by show- ing that while the traitor and the rebel are excluded from Con- gress, the loyal and the faithful are cordially received. It recog- nizes and rewards loyalty wherever it is found, and distinguishes, as it ought, between a Horace Maynard and a Jefferson Davis." Of the purpose expressed in this resolution to " close agitation," Mi. Dixon said: "The vast business interests of this country are eagerly intent on this question. The people of this country are mutually attracted, the North and the South, and they must sooner or later act together. Whatever Congress may do, this question will not cease to be agitated. Adjourn, if you see tit. without settling tin- question j leave it as it is; admit no member from Tennessee; and when you go through the States next fall which hold their election- for < ! ongr< ss, -• whether agitation has ceased. Sir, a word of caution may not be unfit on that subject." Mr. Dixon maintained that the Senate would surrender its in- dependence by resolving that Senators should not be admitted from rebel State- until Congress should have declared them en- titled to such representation. "Upon the question of credentials," -lid he, •• this whole question is before the Senate: and it is for ii- to consider on that question whether the member presenting himself here for admission is a traitor or whether he is true to his country." "Suppose/' said Mr. Trumbull, "that in a time of peace the Legislature of Tennessee is disloyal, and swears allegiance to the Emperor Maximilian, does the Senator deny the authority of Congress to inquire into the character of that Legislature?" " 1 do," replied Mr. Dixon. •• It is for the Senate, and not for ' in i js, to make the inquiry if a Senator from Tennessee in the supposed case presents bimseli BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 425 Mr. Trumbull said : " He denies the authority of Congress to decide whether the constituency is traitorous or loyal!" " That is another point," said Mr. Dixon. " That is the very one I put," said Mr. Trumbull. " If all the members of the Legislature of Tennessee swear allegiance to the Emperor Maximilian, and send a Senator here, I want to know if Congress has a right to inquire into the character of that Legislature ? " " I will answer that by asking another question," said Mr. Dixon. "Suppose that was the case, that the Emperor Maxi- milian had entire control of the State of Tennessee, and a person claiming; a right so to do should come here and offer himself as a member of the Senate, and should be received here; that, in judging of the qualifications, returns, and elections of the member, the Senate decided that he was a Senator, has Congress any thing to do with the question ? I ask hirn if the House of Representa- tives can interfere? Is there an appeal to Congress or any other tribunal ? I ask him if that man is not a Senator in spite of the world ? " " If," replied Mr. Trumbull, " the Senator means to ask me if the Senate has not the physical power to admit any body, elected or not, I admit they have the same right to do it that twelve jury- men would have, against the sworn and uncontradicted testimony of a hundred witnesses, to bring in a verdict directly against the evidence and perjure themselves. I suppose we have the physical power to commit perjury here, when we have sworn to support the Constitution. We might admit a man here from Pennsyl- vania Avenue, elected by nobody, as a member of this Senate; but we w r ould commit perjury in doing it, and have no right to do it." Mr. Trumbull made an extended reply, which assumed some- what the form of a conversation, in which Mr. Dixon and other Senators participated. Mr. Trumbull claimed that it required the concurrent action of both houses of Congress to recognize any government in States where rebellion had overthrown it. On the 28th of February, the concurrent resolution still pend- ing, Mr. Nye, of Nevada, advocated its passage, lie opposed the present admission of any member from the seceding States. " We are told," said he, "by the apologists of these men who are being elected on their merits as rebels, to the exclusion of Union men, that ' we must not expect too much of them.' I fully accede to 426 THE TIIIllTY-XLYlir CONGRESS. this idea. A class that during it- whole political life has aimed at a monopoly of wealth, a monopoly <>{' labor, and a monopoly of political power; that engaged in the attempt at revolution in order to establish more fully and to perpetuate such monopoly ; that, failing in this, has become more hittd- by disappointment, should have time; and, sir, I am decidedly in favor of giving them all the time necessary for the most substantial improvement. I would say to these men, 'Go home! Go hack and labor a- in- dustriousl) to disabuse the minds of your constituencies a- you labored to mislead ami impose upon them. Tell them that the Union Government always was ami uever can he any thing else than a jusl Government. Tell them that the Constitution has become the acknowledged sovereign, ami that it presides in both houses of ( ongress. Inform them, while yon are about it, that the rebel sympathizers and apologists in the North can do them no good; that they are acting as much out of time and propriety now as they did in the time of the war, when their encourage- ment only prolonged the conflict and added to Southern disasti r. You may say to your constituencies that the majority in Congress is very tenacious on the subject of the Union war debt; that it is determined to keep faith with the national creditors; that it is benl on adopting and throwing around it all the safeguards and precautions possible; and that your admission just now,andyour alliance with Northern sympathizers, would not he propitious in raising the value of our public securities. While you are con- ferring with your constituents, you may as well repeat to them the common political axiom that Representatives are elected to represent their constituents, ami that it is not believed at the -cat of Government that a disloyal constituency would make such a mistake as to send loyal Representatives i<> Congress. In short, you ma_\ a- well say to your people that, as Congress represents the loyalty of the nation, South a- well as North, and has much important work on hand, some of it requiring a two-thirds ma- jority, it i- not deemed wholly prudent to part with that majority out of mere comity to men from whom no assistance could he expected. Finally, by way of closing the suggestive instructions, \<>u may give your constituents to understand that, a- you went out of Congress rebel end foremost, you will not probably get into those vacant seats over yonder except that you come hack I 'nioii end foremost.' ' BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 427 Mr. Stewart, of Nevada, held opinions of the pending question different from those maintained by his colleague. He thought " the power to suspend the right of a State to representation might imply a dangerous power, and might imply a right to suspend it for any reason that Congress might see fit. The power to sus- pend the right of a State to be represented might hereafter be a terrible precedent." "There is no provision in the Constitution," said Mr. Stewart, "conferring such a power upon Congress. No authority of the kind is expressed in that instrument, nor can I find any place where it is implied." In another portion of his speech, which was very long, and occupied part of the session of the succeeding day, Mr. Stewart remarked : " In the darkest time of the rebellion, I deny that the right to represent Tennessee in this hall by those who were loyal ever was for a moment sus- pended, but their power to obey the law, their power to represent it was prevented by treason. They were overpowered, and they were denied the right of representation, not by Congress, not by the Government. This war was to maintain for them that right which rebellion had sought to takeaway from them, and had for a time suspended the harmonious relations of the State to the General Government; and it will be too much to admit that this Government has ever been in such a fix that the people thereof were really not entitled to the protection of the Constitution, and because they were denied it this war was brought on, this war was prosecuted." Mr. Johnson opposed the resolution in a protracted speech in which he reviewed the entire subject of reconstruction. Of the condition and rights of the Southern States he said: "They are as much States as they were when the insurrection was inaugu- rated, and their relation to their sister States, and their consequent relation to the Government of the United States, is the same rela- tion in which they stood to both when the insurrection was in- augurated. That would seem to follow logically as a necessary result, and if that is a necessary result, does it not also follow that they are entitled to representation in this chamber? Whether they can present persons who can take their seats, because they have individually committed crimes against the United States is another question; but I speak now of the right itself." Mr. Johnson argued that holding secession sentiments a few years ago was no evidence of present disloyalty, and cited in proof THE THIRTl'-MXTll CONGRESS. of this proposition a newspaper article purporting togiv< on resolutions drawn up by Mr. Wade, and passed at a meeting held at Cleveland in 1859, which was presided over by Joshua R. Giddings. This called forth an answer from Mr. Wade, who said: "The Senator from Maryland called me in question for having been uresenl at a meeting which he affirmed was held in Cleveland some 3even years ago by persons called 'Sons of Liberty,' and he alleged that I there consented to certain resolutions thai were passed which favored the doctrine of secession, and that L was chairman of the committee which reported them. Sir, the charge is a total forgery so far as I am concerned. 1 never was at any such meeting of the Sons of Liberty or any other sons. 1 aev< r uttered such a sentiment in my life; [ am not one of those who have or have had much association with gentlemen holding to secession principles. My associations have all been the other way. DuriiiR- the war that secession made my counsels were against it. I was for war to the death against the principle of secession, while many other gentlemen in my eye were either par- ticipants in or apologists lor that sentiment. I am perfectly aware that a war is made — and 1 am willing to meet it any- where — upon what are called Radical- of the country, and 1 am one of them. In olden times 1 was here in the Senate called an Abolitionist, but they have changed the name since. They have all got to be Abolitionists now, and they have changed my name to ' Radical.' " Mr. President, in the history of mankind, so far as 1 have read or know it, there never has been a time when parties were g ganized on radical principles of justice and right. The party with whom 1 ad appeal to no expediency, to none of your politi- cal policies; we dig down to the granite of eternal truth, and there we stand, and they who assail us have to assail the g] principles of the Almighty, for our principles are chained to his throne, and are as indestructible as the Almighty himself. 1 want no warfare with any body; but if yon will make war upon such principles as we have adopted, it is the worse tor you. You can not prevail. ••1 have been in these political warfares for a long time: 1 claim to be an old soldier in them. 1 stood in this Senate when there were not live men with me to support me, and then I i BASIS OF REPRESENTATION. 4-29 here and told those who were inveighing like demons against the principles that they called abolitionism, that I was an Abolition- ist. To-day you are all Abolitionists, not voluntarily, but by compulsion. I have wondered a great deal why men did not learn more about these things than they seem to do. Our prin- ciples are assailed now with just the same virulence that they used to be when we were in a small minority. I do not hold that they have triumphed thus far because of any superior capac- ity on our part. Certainly not. Why is it, then, that we, from the smallest of all beginnings, have conquered the prejudices of the people and conquered the predominant party of this country which had stood completely dominating the whole nation for more than forty years ? Why is it that we have conquered you, and now are triumphant here in this Senate and almost by two- thirds in both branches, with the whole nation at our backs? What miracle has wrought this change? Xone other than the great consoling fact that justice, liberty, and right are destined among the American people to succeed, and the gates of hell can not prevail against them, although they are trying at this partic- ular time very hard to do it." [Laughter.] On the 2d of March, the last day of the debate, Mr. Cowan first claimed the attention of the Senate in a speech two hours in length. He argued " that for any guilty part taken by the people in the late war, that the sufferings and losses they endured in that war were the natural and sufficient punishment ; that after it they remain purged, and ought to be readmitted to all their con- stitutional rights at once. That it is due to the dignity of the United States as a great nation, if she punishes the actual traitors who incited the rebellion, that it be done solemnly and according to the strictest form of law, in open courts, where the prisoners may have counsel and witnesses, so that they may make their de- fense, if they have any. That according to the Constitution and laws all the States are still in the Union; that secession ordin- ances could not repeal the one, nor war set aside the other ; that they are neither dead by forfeiture or felo de se, but are now in full and perfect existence, with all their municipal machinery in full play. That the proposition of the Committee of Fifteen to amend the Constitution is fundamental and revolutionary, and destructive of the freedom of the States and the liberties of the people ; that it is a threat to deprive them of their rights by com- %30 THE THIRTY-XIXTIT CONGRESS. pelling them either to admit negroes to the right of suffrage or to give 1 1 1 > a .-hare of their representation, which is theirs by law and the lasl amendment to the Constitution. That the resolution now before us from the -aim' < imittee is also revolutionary and de- structive, being an attempt to suspend the Constitution and laws in regard to representation in Congress over eleven States of the Union until Congress -hall see lit t<> restore them. It i- a decla- ration on the part of the members <•!' the present House and Senate, that having the mean- of keeping these States from being represented here, they are going to do so as long as they pleas that n<» line of these measures ran he justified as a punishment for the rebellion; that the Constitution forbids them as hill- of pains and penalties, and as ex -post facto in their character." Mr. Garret Davis, in the course of a speech in opposition to the resolution, suggested a summary solution of the present diffi- culties: "There is," said he, "a provision in the Constitution which requires the President to communicate to the two hous - of Congress information as to the state of the Union, and to recommend to them such measures :i- he -hall deem proper and expedient. What doe- this necessarily impose upon him".' He has to ascertain what men compose the two houses of Congress. It is his right, it is his constitutional function, to ascertain who constitute the two houses of Congress. The members of the Senate who are in favor of the admission of the Southern Sen- ators could get into a conclave with those Southern Senators any day, and they would constitute a majority of the Senate. The President of the United States has the constitutional option — it is his function, it his power, it is his right — and I would advise him to exercise it, to ascertain, where there are two dif- ferent bodies of men both claiming to he the Senate, which i- thc true Senate. If the Southern members and those who are for admitting them to their seat- constitute a majority of the whole Senate, the President has a right — and, by the Eternal I he ought to exercise that right forthwith, to-morrow, or any day — to recognize the < Opposition in this body and the Southern members, the majority of the whole body, a- the true Senate. And then what would become of you gentlemen? Oh, if the lion of the Hermitage, and that great statesman, the t' the legal profession saw in the final clause a dangerous centralization of power. It was considered objec- tionable a- seeming to authorize the General Governmeni to in- terfere with local law- on the subject of property, the legal rights of women, and other matters hitherto considered wholly within the domain of State legislation : hence the Republican majority unanimously voted t<» postpone the amendment until April. RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENT 435 After this postponement, and the failure of the amendment relating to the basis of representation to pass the Senate, the subject of reconstrnetion was in the hands of the Committee of Fifteen until the 30th of April. Individuals had, from time to time, introduced propositions on the subject, which were referred to the appropriate committee. The one which attracted most attention and excited greatest in- terest was a proposition in the Senate, by Mr. Stewart, of Nevada. This was in favor of a joint resolution providing that each of the States lately in rebellion shall be recognized as having resumed its relations with the Government, and its Representatives shall be admitted to Congress whenever it shall have amended its Consti- tution so as to provide — " 1. There shall be no distinction in civil rights among its citizens by reason of race or color or previous condition of servitude; 2. That all debts incurred in aid of the rebellion shall be repudiated; 3. That all claim for compensation for liberated slaves shall be relinquished ; and 4. That the elective franchise be extended to all persons on the same terms, irrespective of race, color, or previous condition, provided that none be disfranchised who were qualified voters in 1860; and that upon these conditions being ratified by a majority of the present voting population of each State, (includ- ing all qualified to vote in I860,) a general amnesty shall be proclaimed as to all who engaged in the rebellion." *o"e v This proposition had peculiar significance, since it emanated from a gentleman who, though elected as a Republican, had ever since the veto of the Freed men's Bureau acted with the Conserv- atives. Mr. Smnner, "with open arms," welcomed the Senator from Nevada as " a new convert to the necessity of negro suf- frage." Mr. Wilson was thankful to the author of this proposi- tion for placing the whole question " on the basis of universal liberty, universal justice, universal suffrage, and universal am- nesty." The resolution was referred to tin 1 Committee of Fifteen, with whom Mr. Wilson had no doubt it would receive "serious consideration." On the 30th of April, Mr. Stevens reported from the Committee of Fifteen a joint resolution providing for the passage of the following amendment to the Constitution : "ARTICLE — . "Sec. 1. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any 6 THE Til I I;T)--.yi.\TI1 COJVGBESi State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the et taxed. But whenever in any State the elective franchise shall be denied to any portion of its male citizens not less than twenty-one years of age, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, tlie basis of representation in such State shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of male citizens shall bear to the whole number of such male citizens not less than twenty-one years of age. " Sec. 3. Until the 4th day of July, in the year 1*70, all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection, giving it aid and comfort, shall be excluded from the right to vote for Representatives in Congress and f.-r electors for President and Vice-President of the United States. "Sec. 4. Neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation already incurred, or which may hereafter be incurred, in aid of insurrection or of war against the United States, or any claim for compensation for loss of involuntary service or labor. "Sec. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legis- lation, the provisions of this article." Tin's proposed amendment to the Constitution was accompanied by two 1 tills, one of which provided that when any State lately in insurrection should have ratified the amendment, its Senators and Representatives, if found duly elected and qualified, should he admitted as members of Congre-s. The other bill declared the high ex-officials of the late Confederacy ineligible to any office under the Government of the United States. The proposed constitutional amendment was by a vote of the House made the special order for Tuesday, the 8th of May. On that day Mr. Stevens occupied the attention of the House with a brief argument in favor of the amendment. Referring to the death in the Senate of the amendment previously proposed, Mr. Stevens said : " But it is dead, and unless this (less efficient, I admit) shall pass, its death has postponed the protection of the colored race perhaps for ages. I confess my mortification at its defeat. 1 grieved especially because it almost closed the door of hope for the amelioration of the condition of the freedmen. But men in pursuit of justice must never despair. Let us again try ami see whether we can not devise some way to overcome the united forces of self-righteous Republicans and unrighteous Cop- per-heads It will not do for those who for thirty years have reconstruction amendment. 437 fought the beasts at Ephesus to be frightened by the fangs of modern catamounts." Of the present proposition, Mr. Stevens said: "It is not all that the committee desired. It falls far short of my wishes, but it fulfills my hopes. I believe it is all that can be obtained in the present state of public opinion. Not only Congress, but the several States are to be consulted. Upon a careful survey of the whole ground, we did not believe that nineteen of the loyal States could be induced to ratify any proposition more stringent than this." Referring to the section prohibiting rebels from voting until 1870, Mr. Stevens said : " My only objection to it is that it is too lenient. Here is the mildest of all punishments ever inflicted on traitors. I might not consent to the extreme severity denounced upon them by a provisional governor of Tennessee — I mean the late lamented Andrew Johnson of blessed memory — but I would have increased the severitv of this section." Mr. Blaine called attention to the fact that most of the persons whom the third section of the amendment was designed to dis- franchise, had their political rights restored to them by the Amnesty Proclamation, or had been pardoned by the President. Mr. Finck opposed the proposition in a speech of which the following are extracts: "Stripped of all disguises, this measure is a mere scheme to deny representation to eleven States ; to pre- vent indefinitely a complete restoration of the Union, and per- petuate the power of a sectional and dangerous party. "Sir, the whole scheme is revolutionary, and a most shallow pretext for an excuse to exclude the vote of eleven States in the next Presidential election. You can not exact conditions in this way from any State in the Union ; no more from Georgia than from Massachusetts. They are each equal States in the Union, held together by the same Constitution, neither being the superior of the other in their relation to the Federal Government as States." Commenting on the first section, designed to insert a recogni- tion of civil rights in the Constitution, Mr. Finck said: "If it is necessary to adopt it in order to confer upon Congress power over the matters contained in it, then the Civil Rights Bill, which the President vetoed, was passed without authority, and is clearly unconstitutional." 438 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS To this inference, Mr. Garfield replied: " I am glad to see this tion here, which proposes to hold over every American citizen without regard to color, tin- protecting shield of law. The gentleman who has jusl taken his seat undertake-; to Bhow that because we propose to vote for this section, we therefore acknowl- edge that the Civil Rights Bill was unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Bill is now a part of the law of the land. But every gentleman knows it will cease to be a part of the law when the sad moment arrives when that gentleman's party comes into power. It is precisely for that reason that we propose to lift that great and good law above the reach of political strife, be- yond the reach of the plot- and machinations of any party, and fix it in the serene sky, in the eternal firmament of the Constitu- tion, where no storm of passion can shake it, and no cloud can obscure it. For this reason, and not because I believe the Civil Rights Bill unconstitutional, I am glad to see that first section h-n." Mr. Garfield opposed the section disfranchising rebels as "the only proposition in this resolution that is not bottomed clearly and plainly upon principle — principle that will stand the test of centuries, and be as true a thousand years hence as it is to-day." Mi-. Thayer, while favoring the proposed amendment in all other particulars, was opposed t" the third section. "I think/' said he, "that it imperils the whole measure under consideration, t will continue to he the condition of the country ii* you adopt this feature of the proposed plan'.' Continual distraction, continued agitation, continued bickerings, continued opposition to the law, and it will l>e well for the country if a new insurrection shall not spring from it< bosom." Mr. Boyer denounced the proposition as " an ingenious scheme to keep out the Southern States ami to prevent the restoration of the I 'nion until after the next Presidential election." Mr. Kelley, it' he "could have controlled the report of the Committee of Fifteen, would have proposed to give the right of suffrage to every loyal man in the country." He advocated the amendment, however, in all its provisions, lb' especially de- fended the third section. "This measure," said he, "doe-, not propose to punish them; on the contrary, it is an act of amnesty, and proposes, after four y< to reinvest them with all their RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENT. 439 rights, which they do not possess at this time because of their crime." The passage of the resolution was next advocated by Mr. Schenck. Referring to the third section, he denied the principle advanced by Mr. Garfield that there was any thing inconsistent or wrong in making it an exclusion for a term of years instead of exclusion altogether. " If there be any thing in that argument," said he, " in case of crime, you must either not sentence a man to the penitentiary at all, or else incarcerate him for the term of his natural life. Or, to compare it to another thing, which perhaps better illustrates the principle involved, when a foreigner arrives upon our shores we should not say to him, ' At the end of five years, when you have familiarized yourself with our institutions, and become attached to them, we will allow you to become a citizen, and admit you to all the franchises we enjoy/ but we should require that he be naturalized the moment he touches our soil, or else excluded from the rights of citizenship forever." Mr. Schenck thought the loyal and true people throughout the land were "full ready to declare that those who have proved traitors, and have raised their parricidal hands against the life of the country, who have attempted to strike down our Government and destroy its institutions, should be the very last to be trusted to take any share in preserving, conducting, and carrying on that Government and maintaining those institutions." Mr. Smith opposed the resolution in a speech which, if it added nothing to the arguments, contributed, by its good humored per- sonalities and its harmless extravagancies, to the amusement of the auditors. On the following day, May 9th, the consideration of the subject was resumed, and Mr. Broomall addressed the House in favor of the resolution. He began by counting the votes that would probably be cast against the amendment. " It would meet the opposition," said he, " of the unrepentant thirty-three of this body. It was also to be expected that the six Johnsonian new converts to Democracy would oppose and vote against tin- measure, commencing with the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Raymond,] who, I believe, has the disease in the most virulent form, thence down to the gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. Smith,] who preceded me on this question, and who has the mildest and most amiable type of the infection. Upon them, too, arguments 440 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. are useless. There must, then, be thirty-nine votes against the measure, and I want there to be no more." To the objection urged against the third section of the proposed amendment, thai it would disfranchise nine-tenths of all the voters of the South, Mr. Broomall replied: "This is a grand mistake. There were in I860 one million one hundred and twenty thousand voter- in those eleven States. We may take .-even hundred and fiftv thousand as the number of individuals in the South who ren- dered aid and comfort to the enemy, not counting the compara- tively few though powerful leaders who rendered aid and comfort outside of the army. But. sir, we do not propose to disfranchise even these seven hundred and fifty thousand. Supposing two hundred and fifty thousand of the rebel army were lost, we have five hundred thousand actual voters i n the South to be disfran- chised by this measure, if they come within the meaning of it. But do they come within the meaning of this provision? Why, sir, it does not embrace the unwilling conscripts; it doe- not em- brace the men who were compelled to serve in the army. It would he t'air io say three hundred thousand of these people belonged to the unwilling class, who were forced into the army by rigid con- scription laws and the various contrivance.- of the leading rebels. This will leave two hundred thousand; and I say now it is ut- terly impossible, in my opinion, that the number of people in the South who can be operated upon by this provision should exceed two hundred thousand, if, indeed, it should reach the one half of that number. Is this nine-tenths of the voters of the South? Why, it is about one ill even twelve." Mr. Shanklin opposed the amendment as intended "to disfran- chise the people of the Southern State- who have gone int.. this rebellion, until the party in power could fasten and rivet the chain- of oppression for all time to conn', and hedge themselves in power, that they may rule and control those people at will." Mr. Shanklin closed his Bpeech with the following advice to Congress: " Discharge your joint Committee on Reconstruction \ abolish your Freedmen's Bureau; repeal your Civil Rights lull, and admit all the delegates from the -.ceded States to their -eat- in <•,„,_ sho have been elected according to the law- of the country and j tlie constitutional qualification, and all will he W ell. w Mr. Raymond spoke in favor of the amendment, except the RECOXSTB UCTION A. UK. ^ '/). MEjYT. 441 disfranchisement clause. He had opposed the Civil Rights Bill on the ground of want of constitutional power in Congress to pass it. He favored the first section of this amendment, since it gave the previous acts of Congress a constitutional basis. In answer to Mr. Broomall's " ingenious argument," Mr. Ray- mond said: "It seems to me idle to enter into such calculations, which depend on a series of estimates, each one of which can not be any thing more than a wild and random guess. I take it that we all know perfectly well that the great masses of the Southern people l voluntarily adhered to the insurrection;' not at the out- set, not as being originally in favor of it, but during its progress, sooner or later, they voluntarily gave in their adhesion to it, and gave it aid and comfort. They did not all join the army. They did not go into the field, but they did, at different times, from various motives and in various ways, give it aid and comfort. That would exclude the great body of the people of those States under this amendment from exercising the right of suffrage." Mr. Raymond asserted that all that was offered to the rebel legislatures of the Southern States, in return for the concessions required of them, was " the right to be represented on this floor, provided they will also consent not to vote for the men who are to represent them ! The very price by which we seek to induce their assent to these amendments we snatch away from their hands the moment that assent is secured. Is there any man here who can so far delude himself as to suppose for a moment that the people of the Southern States will accede to any such scheme as this'? There is not one chance in ten thousand of their doing; it." Mr. McKee advocated the amendment. He thought that op- position to its third section was a rebuke to those States which had passed laws disfranchising rebels. To obviate all objections to this section, however, he proposed a substitute forever exclud- ing "all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrec- tion " from holding " any office under the Government of the United States." Mr. Eldridge did not intend " to make an argument on the merits of the joint resolution." His remarks were mostly in derogation of the committee by whom the measure was recom- mended. "The committee," said he, "report no facts whatever, and give us no conclusion. They simply report amendments to THE THJirr)--Xr.YTl( CONGRESS. the < institution. Was that the purpose for which the committee was organized? Was it to change the fundamental law of the land under which we of the loyal States assembled here'.' Was that the duty with which the committee was charged? Were they to inquire and report an entire change of the fundamental law of the nation which would destroy the States and create as empire? I .say they were charged with no such duty. The re- solution can imt fairly be construed as giving to the committee any such power, any such jurisdiction. The committee stands sting the restoration of this Union, and I hope thai no further business will be referred to it. It has rendered itself unworthy of the high duty with which it was charged." Mr. Eldridge asserted: "The whole scheme is in the interest of party alone, to preserve and perpetuate the party idea of this Republican disunion party." The debate thus entering " the domain of partisan controversy," Mr. Boutwell, in a speech which followed, undertook to .-how- how the proposition before the House "traverses the policy of the Democratic party with reference to the reconstruction of the Gov- ernment." Mr. Boutwell described the policy of the Democratic party, "which," said he, "they laid down as early as 1856 in the platform made at Cincinnati, wherein they declared substantially that it was the right of a Territory to be admitted into this Union with such institutions as it chose to establish, not even by implication admitting that the representatives of the existing Gov- ernment had any right to canvass those institutions, or to consider the right of the Territory to he recognized as a State. •■ Now, sir, from that doctrine, which probably had it< origin in the resolutions of 1798, the whole of their policy to this day has leeitimatelv followed. First, we saw it- results in the doc- trine of Mr. Buchanan, announced in L860, that, while the Con- stitution diil not provide for or authorize the -ion of a State from this Union, there was no power in the existing < rovernment to compel a State to remain in the Union against its own judg- ment. Following that doctrine, they come Legitimately to the conclusion of to-day, in which they are supported, as I under- stand, by the Presidenl of the United States upon the one s»de, and, as I know, by the testimony of A-lexander II. Stephens, /ate Vice-President of the so-called Confederacy, upon the ot) % er. That doctrine, is that these eleven States have to-day, each for it- RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENT. 443 self, an existing and unquestionable right of representation in the Government of this country, and that it is a continuous right which has not been interrupted by any of the events of the war." On the other hand, Mr. Boutwell thus denned the position of "the Union party," which, he said, "stands unitedly upon two propositions. The first is equality of representation, about which there is no difference of opinion. The second is, that there shall be a loyal people in each applicant State before any Representative from that State is admitted in Congress. And there is a third : a vast majority of the Republican party, soon to be the controlling and entire force of that party, demand suffrage for our friends, for those who have stood by us in our days of tribulation. And for myself, with the right, of course, to change my opinion, I believe in the Constitutional power of the Government to-day to extend the elective franchise to every loyal male citizen of the republic." Mr. Spalding favored the amendment, including the third sec- tion, to which exception had been taken by some of his friends. He asked, " Is it exceptionable ? Is it objectionable ? If it be so, it is, in my judgment, for the reason that the duration of the pe- riod of incapacity is not extended more widely. I take my stand here, that it is necessary to ingraft into that enduring instrument called the Constitution of the United States something which shall admonish this rebellious people, and all who shall come after them, that treason against the Government is odious ; that it carries with it some penalty, some disqualification ; and the only one which we seek to attach by this amendment is a disqualification in voting — not for their State and countv and town officers, but for mem- bers of Congress, who are to be the law-makers, and for the Executive of the United States, this disqualification to operate for the short period of four years." Mr. Miller advocated all the sections of the proposed amend- ment except the third. Of this he said: "Though it seems jusl on its face, I doubt the propriety of embodying it with the other amendments, as it may retard, if not endanger, the ratification of the amendment in regard to representation, and we can not afford to endanger in any manner a matter of such vital impor- tance to the countrv." Mr. Eliot had voted against the former amendment, which was passed by the House and rejected by the Senate. The present proposed amendment, while it was not all he could ask, was not 444 TIIE THIRTT-XIXTH CONGRESS. open to the objections which then controlled his vote. In advo- cating the third section, he said: "It is clear, upon adjudged law, thai the States lately in rebellion, and the inhabitants of I States, by force of the civil war, and of the Onion triumph in that war, so far have lost their rights to take part in the Govern- ment of the Union that some action on the part of Congress is required to restore those rights. Pardon and amnesty given by the President ran not restore them. Those men ran not vote for Presidenl or for Representatives in Congress until, in some May, Congress has so acted as to restore their power. The question, then, is very simple: Shall national power be at once conferred on those who have striven, by all means open to them, to destroy the nation's life"? Shall our enemies and the enemies of the Gov- ernment, as soon as they have been defeated in war, help to direct and to control the public policy of the Government — and that, too, while those men, hostile themselves, keep from all exercise of political power the only true and loyal friends whom we have had, during these four years of war, within these Southern Sta1 It had been argued against the third section that it could not be enforced, that it would be inoperative. To this objection Mr. Shellabarger replied: "It will not require standing armies. You can have registry law-. Upon this registry list yon may place the names of men who are to be disqualified, and yon may also have the name- of all who arc qualified to vote under the law. There they will stand, there they will be, to be referred to by your Government in the execution of its laws. And when it comes to this House or to the Senate to determine whether a man is duly elected, yon can resort to the ordinary process applicable to a trial in a contested election case in cither body, as to whether he has been elected by the men who were entitled to eh c t him." Thursday. Mav LOth, was the last day of this discussion in the House. Mr. Randall firs! took the floor and -poke in opposition to the joint resolution. To the friend- of the measure he said: ■• [i is intended to secure what yon mosi wish: an entire disagree- ment to the whole scheme by the eleven Southern State-, and a continued omission of representation on this floor." Mr. Strouse, in opposing the amendment, occupied mosi of his time in reading an editorial from the New York Times, which he characterized as "sound, patriotic, statesmanlike, and just." M Strouse expresa d, as his own opinion, " that the State- are, RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENT. 445 and never ceased to be, in law and in fact, constituent parts of our Union. If I am correct in this opinion, what necessity exists for these amendments of the Constitution? Let the States be represented in the Senate and House by men who can conscien- tiously qualify as members; and after that, when we have a full Congress, with the whole country represented, let any amendment that may be required be proposed, and let those most interested have an opportunity to participate in the debates and delibera- tions of matters of so much moment to every citizen." Mr. Banks regarded the pending amendment as the most im- portant question which could be presented to the House or to the country. " It is my belief," said he, " that reorganization of governments in the insurgent States can be secured only by measures which will work a change in the basis of political society. Any thing that leaves the basis of political society in the Southern States untouched, leaves the enemy in condition to renew the war at his pleasure, and gives him absolute power to destroy the Government whenever he chooses. "There are two methods by which the change I propose can be made : one by extending the elective franchise to the negro, the other by restrictions upon the political power of those here- tofore invested with the elective franchise — a part of whom are loyal and a part of whom are disloyal, a part of whom are friends and a part of whom are enemies. " I have no doubt that the Government of the United States has authority to extend the elective franchise to the colored pop- ulation of the insurgent States, but I do not think it has the power. The distinction I make between authority and power is this : We have, in the nature of our Government, the right to do it; but the public opinion of the country is such at this precise moment as to make it impossible we should do it. The situation of opinion in these States compels us to look to other means to protect the Government against the enemy. " I approve of the proposition which disfranchises the enemies of the country. I think it right in principle. I think it neces- sary at this time. If I had any opinion to express, I should say to the gentlemen of the House that it is impossible to organize a government in the insurgent States, and have the enemies of the country in possession of political power, in whole or in part, in local governments or in representation here. 44^ THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. "An enemy to the Government, a man who avows himself an enemy <>t' its policy and measures, who has made war against the Government, would not seem to have any absolute right to share political power equally with other men who have never been otherwise than friend- of the Government. "A pardon does not confer or restore political power. A gen- eral aet of amnesty differs from an individual pardon only in the fact that it applies to a class of offender- who can not be indi- vidually described. It secures immunity from punishment or prosecution by obliterating all remembrance of the offense; but it confers or restores no one to political power. " There is no justification for the opinion so strongly expressed, that this measure will fail because the rebel States will not con- sent to the disfranchisement of any portion of their own people. The proposition is for the loyal States to determine upon what terms they will restore to the Union the insurgent States. It i< not necessary that they should participate in our deliberations upon this subject, and wholly without reason that they should have the power to defeat it. It is a matter of congratulation that they have not this power. We have the recpiisite number of States without them. " I do not believe that there is a State in this Union where at least a clear majority of the people were not from the beginning opposed to the Mar; and could you remove from the control of public opinion one or two thousand in each of these States, so as to let up from the foundations of political society the mass of common people, you would have a population in all these States :i- loyal and true to the Government as the people of any portion of the Easf or West. "The people knew that it was the rich man's war and the poor man's fight. The legislation of the insurgent State- exempted, to a great degree, the rich men ami their sons, on account of the possession of property, while it forced, at the point of the bayonet, and oftentimes at the cost of life, the masses of tie people to maintain their cause. There is nothing in the whole war more atrocious than the cruel measures taken by the rebel leaders to force the people who hail no interest in it, and were averse to sharing its dishonor and peril." Mr. Banks remarked of the amendment: "It will produce the exact result which we desire: the immediate restoration of the RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENT. 447 governments of the States to the Union, the recognition of the loyal people, and the disfranchisement of the implacable and un- changeable public enemies of the Union, and the creation of State governments upon the sound and enduring basis of common in- terest and common affection." "Six. Eckley advocated the joint resolution, citing a number of historical and political precedents in favor of its provisions. Of the disfranchising clause, he said : " The only objection I have to the proposition is, that it does not go far enough. I would disfranchise them forever. They have no right, founded in jus- tice, to participate in the administration of the Government or exercise political power. If they receive protection in their persons and property, are permitted to share in the nation's bounties, and live in security under the broad aegis of the na- tion's flag, it is far more than the nation owes them." Mr. Longyear favored the amendment, but disliked the third section, of which he said : " Let us then reject this dead weight, and not load down good provisions, absolutely essential provis- ions, by this, which, however good in and of itself, can not be enforced. I regard this provision, if adopted, both worthless and harmless, and, therefore, I shall vote for the proposed amendment as a whole, whether this be rejected or retained." Mr. Beaman held a similar opinion. He said : "We very well know that such a provision would be entirely inoperative, because electors for President and Vice-President can be appointed by the Legislatures, according to a practice that has always obtained in South Carolina. The provision does not extend to the election of Senators, and, consequently, it can operate only to affect the election of members of this House, and that only for a period of four years." Mr. Rogers denounced the proposed amendment in emphatic terms. He said : " The first section of this programme of dis- union is the most dangerous to liberty. It saps the foundation of the Government; it destroys the elementary principles of the States; it consolidates every thing into one imperial despotism ; it annihilates all the rights which lie at the foundation of the union of the States, and which have characterized this Govern- ment and made it prosperous and great during the long period of its existence. It will result in a revolution worse than that through which we have just passed; it will rock the earth like 448 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. the throes of an earthquake, until its tragedy will summon the inhabitants of the world to witness its dreadful shock. "In the third section, yon undertake," Baid Mr. Rogers, "to enunciate a doctrine that will, if carried out, disfranchise seven or eight million people, and that will put them in a worse con- dition than the serfs of Russia or the downtrodden people of Poland and Hungary, until the year 1870." Mr. Farnsworth advocated the amendment, but did not regard the third section as of any practical value. It did not provide punishment adequate tn the guilt of the various offenders. " There is a large class of men," said he, "both in the North and South, equally — yea, and more — guilty than thousands of the misguided men who will be disfranchised by this provision, who will not be affected by it. I allude to those politicians and others at the South, who, keeping themselves out of danger, set on the ignorant and brave to fight for what they were told by these rascals were 'their rights;' and to other politicians, editors, 'copper-heads' in the North, some of whom were and are members of Congress, who encouraged them and discouraged our soldiers." Mr. Bingham spoke in favor of the amendment. He preferred that the disfranchising clause should be embodied in an act of Congress. "I trust," said he, "that this amendment, with or •without the third section, will pass this House, that the day may soon come when Tennessee — loyal Tennessee — loyal in the very heart of the rebellion, her mountains and plains blasted by the ravages of war and stained with the blood of her faithful chil- dren fallen in the great struggle for the maintenance of the Union, having already conformed her constitution and laws to everv provision of this amendment, will at once, upon its sub- mission by Congress, irrevocably ratify it, and be, without further delay, represented in Congress by her loyal Representatives and Senators. " Let that great example be set by Tennessee, and it will be worth a hundred thousand votes to the loyal people in the free North. Let this be done, and it will be hailed as the harbinger of thai day for which all good men pray, when the fallen pillars of the republic shall be restored without violence or the noise of words or the sound of the hammer, each to its original place in the sacred temple of our national liberties, thereby giving assur- ance to all the world that, for the defense of the republic, it was RECONSTR UCT10X . I. WE. \ D, )/ h'.YT. 44 9 not in vain that a million and a half of men, the very elect of the earth, rushed to arms ; that the republic still lives, and will live for evermore, the sanctuary of an inviolable justice, the refuge of liberty, and the imperishable monument of the nation's dead, from the humblest soldier who perished on the march, or went down amid the thunder and tempest of the dread conflict, up through all the shining roll of heroes and patriots and martyrs to the incorruptible and immortal Commander-in-chief, who fell by an assassin's hand in the capital, and thus died that his coun- try might live." The hour having arrived when, by understanding of the House, the discussion should close, Mr. Stevens closed the debate with a short speech. " I am glad," said he, " to see great unanimity among the Union friends in this House on all the provisions of this joint resolution except the third one. I am not very much gratified to see any division among our friends on that which I consider the vital proposition of them all. Without that, it amounts to nothing. I do not care the snap of my finger whether it be passed or not if that be stricken out. I should be sorry to find that that provision was stricken out, because, before any portion of this can be put into operation, there will be, if not a Herod, a worse than Herod elsewhere to obstruct our actions. That side of the house will be filled with yelling secessionists and hissing copper-heads. Give us the third section or give us nothing. Do not balk us with the pretense of an amendment which throws the Union into the hands of the enemy before it becomes consolidated. Do not, I pray you, admit those who have slaughtered half a million of our countrymen until their clothes are dried, and until they are reclad. I do not wish to sit side by side with men whose garments smell of the blood of my kindred. Gentlemen seem to forget the scenes that were enacted here years ago. Many of you were not here. But my friend from Ohio [Mr. Garfield] ought to have kept up his reading enough to have been familiar with the history of those days, when the men that you propose to admit occupied the other side of the House; when the mighty Toombs, with his shaggy locks, headed a gang who, with shouts of defiance on this floor, rendered this a hell of legislation. "Ah, sir, it was but six years ago when they were here, just before they went out to join the armies of Catiline, just before they 29 '0 Tin-: THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS left this hall. Those of you who were here then will remember the scene in which every Southern member, encouraged by their allies, came forth in one yelling body because a -perch for free- dom was being made here; when weapons were drawn, and Barksdale's bowie-knife gleamed before our eyes. Would you have these men hack again so s i to reenact tho aes? \V;iif until I am gone, T pray you. I want not to go through ii again. It will be but a short time for my colleague to wait. I hope he will not put us to that test." At the close of his remark-. .Mr. Steven- moved the previous «p lost ion. M r. Garfield hoped that it would be voted down, that he might have an opportunity to offer a substitute for the third section, forever excluding the persons therein specified "from holding any office of trust or profit under the Government of the United States." Nevertheless, the previous question was sustained, and a vote was taken on the joint resolution proposing the constitutional amendment as it came from the committee. The following are the yeas and nay- : Yeas — Messrs Alley, Allison, Aim^. Anderson, Delos I! Ashley, James M. Ashley, Baker, Baldwin. Banks, Barker. Baxter. Beaman, Benjamin, Bidwell, Bingham, Blaine, Blow. Boutwell, Bromwell, Broomall, Buckland, Bundy, Header W. Clarke, > i ■ 1 1 1 c_v Clark.'. Cobh, Conkling, Cook, Cullom, Darling, Davis, Dawes, Defrees, Delano, Deming, Dixon. Dodge, Donnelly, Driggs, Du- mont, Eckley, Eggleston, Eliot, Farnsworth, Ferry, Garfield, Grinnell, Gris- wold, Abnber < '. Harding, Hart. Hayes, Henderson, Higby, HolmeB, Hooper. Hotchkiss, Asahel W. Hubbard, * Ihester 1> Hubbard, l><-mas Hubbard, James K Hubbell, Hulburd, James Humphrey, Ingersoll, Jenckes, Julian, Kasson, Kelley, Kelso, Ketcham, Kuykendall, Laflin, George V. Lawrence, William Lawrence, Loan, Longyear, Lynch, Marston, McClurg, Mclndoe, McKee, McRuer, Mercur, Miller. Moorhead, Morrill. Morris, Moulton, Myers, New- ell, O'Neill, Orth, Paine, Patterson. Perham, Pike, Plants, Price, William II Randall, Raymond, Alexander H. Rice, John 11 Rice, Rollins, Sawyer, Schenck, Scofield, Shellabarger, Spalding, Stevens, Stilwell, Thayer, Francis Thomas, John L Thomas, Trowbridge, Upson, Van Aernam, Burt Van Horn, Roberl T Van Horn. Ward, Warner, Klihu B. Washbnrne, Henry IV Wash- burn, William P. Washburn, Welker, William-. James F. Wilson. Stephen F. Wilson. Windom, Woodb ridge, ami the Speaker — 128. Nays — Messrs Ancona, Bergen, Boyer, Chanler, Coffroth, Dawson, Eld- ridge, Finok, Glossbronner, Goodyear, Grider, Aaron Harding, Harris. Kerr. Latham, Le Blond, Marshall, McCullough, Nil.lack. Phelps. Radford, Samuel J. Randall, Ritter, Rogers, R039, Rosseau, Shanklin, Sit^reaves, RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENT. 4SI Smith. Strouse, Tabor, Taylor, Thornton, Trimble, Whaley, WinficM, and Wright— 37. Applause on the floor and in the galleries greeted the announce- ment that two-thirds of the House having voted in the affirma- tive the joint resolution was passed. The heavy majority by which this measure passed the House indicated an effect of the President's steady opposition, the oppo- site of what was anticipated. The amendment secured two votes which were cast against the Civil Rights Bill, while it lost no vote which that measure received. It is remarkable that the joint resolution should have been carried with such unanimity when so many Republicans had ex- pressed dissatisfaction with the third section. This is accounted for, however, by the pressure of the previous question, in which fifteen Democrats joined forces with the radical Republicans to force the undivided issue upon the House. A large minority of the Republican members were thus prevented from voting against the clause disfranchising the late rebels until 1870. In the Senate, as will be seen, the amendment assumed a shape more in accordance with their wishes. 452 the ni/irrr-.y/xTii congress. CHAPTER XVIII. THE RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENT— IN THE SENATE DIFFERENCE between Discussions in the House and in the Senate — Mr Sumner proposes to postpone — Mr. Howard takes Charge of the Amend- ment — SUBSTITUTES PROPOSED — The KeiT IH.K'ANS IN COUNCIL — The DIS- FRANCHISING Clause stricken out — Humorous Account by Mr Hendricks — The Pain and Penalties op not holding Office — A Senator's Pdbts APPEALED TO — HoWE VS. DOOLITTLE — MARKETABLE PRINCIPLES — PRAISE OF the President — Mi:. MoDougall's Charity — Vote of the Senate— CURRENCE IN THE IIolSE. TIT E joint resolution providing for amendments to the Con- stitution in relation to the rights of citizens, the basis of representation, the disfranchisement of rebels, and the rejec- tion of the rebel debt, having passed the House of Representa- tives on the 10th of May, awaited only similar action of the Senate to prepare it to go before the several State Legislatures for final consideration. A fortnight had elapsed before it was taken up by the Senate. That body was much behind the House of Representatives in the business of the session. Notwithstanding the great size of the latter, it was accustomed to dispatch business with much greater rapidity than the Senate. The hour rule, lim- iting the length of speeches, and the previous question putting a boundary upon debate, being part of the machinery of the House, caused legislation to go on to final completion, which would other- wise have beeo -wallowed up and lost in interminable talk. The Senate, consisting of a smaller number, did not realize the need of such restrictions. Senators sometimes indulged them- selves in speeches of such length as, if permitted in the House, would have proved an insurmountable obstacle to legislation. The contrast between the discussions in the two houses of Con- gress was never more marked than in connection with the amend- RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENT. ^53 ment relating to reconstruction. In this case the members of the House by special rule limited themselves to half an hour in the delivery of their speeches, which were consequently marked by great pertinency and condensation. In the Senate the speeches were in some instances limited only by the physical ability of the speakers to proceed. In one instance — the case of Garrett Davis — a speech was prolonged four hours, occupying all that part of the day devoted to the discussion. The limits of a volume would be inadequate for giving more than a mere outline of a discussion conducted upon such principles, and protracted through a period of more than two weeks. The joint resolution was taken up by the Senate on the 23d of May. Mr. Sumner preferred that the consideration of the ques- tion should be deferred until the first of July. " We were able," said he, " to have a better proposition at the end of April than we had at the end of March, and I believe we shall be able to accept a better proposition just as the weeks proceed. It is one of the greatest questions that has ever been presented in the his- tory of our country or of any country. It should be approached carefully and solemnly, and with the assurance we have before us all the testimony, all the facts, every thing that by any possibil- ity ran shed any light upon it." The Senate proceeded, however, to the consideration of the joint resolution. Owing to the ill-health of Mr. Fessenden, who, as Chairman of the joint Committee on Reconstruction, would probably have taken charge of the measure, Mr. Howard opened the discussion and conducted the resolution in its passage through the Senate. He addressed the Senate in favor of all the sections of the proposed amendment except the third. " It is due to my- self," said he, " to say that I did not favor this section of the amendment in the committee. I do not believe, if adopted, it will be of any practical benefit to the country." Mr. Clark offered a substitute for the third section — the dis- franchising clause — the following amendment, which, with slight modifications, was ultimately adopted : "That no person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or permitted to hold any offiee under the Government of the United States, who, having previously taken an oath to support the Constitution thereof, shall have voluntarily engaged in any insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or given aid or comfort thereto." '■4 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. Mr. Wade offered a substitute for the whole bill, providing thai no State shall abridge the rights of any person bora within the ted States, and that no class of* persons, as to whose right to suffrage discrimination -hall be made by any State except on the ground of intelligence, property, or rebellion, shall be included in the basis of representation. " I do not suppose," said Mr. Wade, ''thai if I had been on the committee I could have drawn up a proposition so good as this is that they have brought forward ; and yet it seems to me, having the benefit of what they have done, that looking it oyer, reflecting upon it, seeing all its weak points, it* it have any, I could, without having the ability of that committee, suggesl amendments that would be beneficial." Referring to die third section of the joint resolution, Mr. Wade remarked : " I am for excluding those who took any leading part. in the rebellion from exercising any political power here or else- where now and forever; but as that clause does not seem to effect that purpose, and will probably effect nothing at all, I do not think it is of any consequence that it should have a place in the measure." < >n the '24th of May, Mr. Stewart spoke three hours on the constitutional amendment. He advocated the extension to tin 1 States lately engaged in rebellion of all civil and political rights on condition of their extending impartial suffrage to all ■ people. lie announced his policy as that of "protection for the Union and the friend- of tic Union, and mercy to a 'i foe. Mercy pleaded generous amnesty; justice demanded impartial suffrage. I proposed pardon for the rebels and the ballot for the black-.*' Of the Committee on Reconstruction, Mr. Stewart said : " I realize the difficulties which they hav< I called upon to encounter. They have acted a noble part in their efforts to harmonize conflicting opinions. 1 rejoice in the manner in which the report is presented, and the liberal spirit manifested by the committee toward those who are anxious to aid in the perfection of their plan." Mi-. Johnson moved to strike out the third section, without offering a substitute. Mr. Sherman offered a substitute for the second and third sec- tions, apportioning representation according to the number of male citizens qualified to vote by State laws, and apportioning ■ taxes according to the value of real and personal property. recojYSTr uctiox ami:. \ '/). VENT. 455 The constitutional amendment was not again brought up for consideration in the Senate until Tuesday, May 29th. The several days during which the discussion was suspended in the Senate were not fruitless in their effect upon the pending meas- ure. The amendment was carefully considered by the majority in special meeting-, when such amendations and improvements were agreed upon as would harmonize the action of the Republi- cans in the Senate. The first action of the Senate, when the subject was resumed, was to vote upon Mr. Johnson',- motion to strike out the third section, which was passed unanimously — yeas, 48; nays, 0. Mr. Howard, acting for the committee, then offered a .-cries of amendments to the joint resolution under consideration. The first of these provided for the insertion as a part of section one, the following clause: "All persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside." Another modification moved by Mr. Howard was the inser- tion, in place of the third section already stricken out, a clause disabling certain classes of rebels from hi 'ding federal offices. This amendment was substantially the same as that previously proposed by Mr. Clark. It was proposed to amend section four, which, as passed by the House, simply repudiated the rebel debt, by inserting the following clause : "The obligations of the United States incurred in suppressing insurrec- tion, or in defense of the Union, or for payment of bounties or pensions incident thereto, shall remain inviolate." Such were the amendments to the pending measure which the majority saw proper to propose. At a subsequent period of the debate, Mr. Hendricks, in a speech against the joint resolution, gave his view of the manner in which these amendments were devised. Being spoken, in good humor, by one whom a fellow-Senator once declared to be " the best-natured man in the Senate," and having, withal, a certain appropriateness to this point, his remarks are here presented: " For three days the Senate-chamber was silent, but the discuss- 456 THE THIRTl'-.Yf.YTII CONGRESS. ions were transferred to another room of the Capitol, with closed doors and darkened win. low-, where party Leaders might safely contend for a political and party policy. When Senators re- turned to their -cats, I was curious to observe who had won and who lost in the party lottery. The dark brow of* the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Clark] was lighted with a gleam of pleasure. His proposed substitute for the third section was the marked feature of the measure. But upon the lofty brow of the Senator from Nevada [Mr. Stewart] there rested a cloud of dis- appointment and grief. His bantling, which he had named uni- versal amnesty and universal suffrage, which he had so often dressed and undressed in the presence of the Senate, the darling offspring of his brain, was dead; it had died in the caucus; and it was left to the sad Senator only to hope that it might not be his last. Upon the serene countenance of the Senator from Maine, the Chairman of the Fifteen, there rested the composure of the highest satisfaction; a plausible political platform had been devised, and there was yet hope for his party. "" ( )n the 30th of May, the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, proceeded in the consideration of the constitutional amendment. The several clauses were taken up separately and in order. Mi-. Doolittle was desirous of amending the first section, relat- ing to the rights of citizen-, by inserting a clause excepting from it- operation " Indian- not taxed." His proposition was rejected. ••'Idic Committee of Fifteen," said Mr. Doolittle, referring to the Civil Rights Bill, "fearing that this declaration by Congress was without validity unless a constitutional amendment should be brought forward to enforce it, have thought proper to report this amendment." "I want to say to the honorable Senator." Mr. Fessenden re- particle; not a scintilla; not the beginning of truth." The first and second sections of the amendment were accepted in Committee of the Whole, with little further attempt :.t alteration. The third section, cutting off late Confederate officials from eligibility to Federal offices, provoked repeated attempts to mod- ify and emasculate it. Among them was a motion by Mr. Sauls- bury to amend the final clause by adding that the President, by the exercise of the pardoning power, may remove the disability. plied, "that he is drawing entirely upon his imagination. There is not one word of correctness in all that he is saying: not a '.- ■ RECONSIRUCTIOjY amendment. 457 It augured the final success of the entire amendment in the Senate, that the numerous propositions to amend, made by those unfavorable to the measure, were voted down by majorities of more than three-fourths. Mr. Doolittle, speaking in opposition to the third section, said that it was putting a new punishment upon all persons embraced within its provisions. " If/' said he, " by a constitutional amend- ment, you impose a new punishment upon offenders who are guilty of crime already, you wipe out the old punishment as to them. Now, I do not propose to wipe out the penalties that these men have incurred by their treason against the Government. I would punish a sufficient number of them to make treason odious." "How many would you like to hang?" asked Mr. Nye. "You stated the other day that five or six would be enough to hang," replied Mr. Doolittle. " Do you acquiesce in that ? " asked Mr. Nye. " I think I ought to be satisfied," replied Mr. Doolittle, " if you are satisfied with five or six. " The insertion of this section," said Mr. Doolittle, continuing his remarks, "tends to prevent the adoption of the amendment by a sufficient number of States to ratify it. What States to be affected by this amendment will ratify it?" " Four will accept that part of it," said Mr. James H. Lane. "What four?" asked Mr. Doolittle. "Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana," replied Mr. Lane. " I saw some gentlemen on Monday from Tennessee, who told me that this particular clause would be the most popular thing that could be tendered. And the very men that you want to hang ought to accept it joyfully in lieu of their hanging." [Laughter.] "I do not know who those particular gentlemen were," said Mr. Doolittle. " Were they the gentlemen that deserved hanging or not ? " "liny were Conservatives from Tennessee," replied Mr. Lane. "I deem this section as the adoption of a new punishment as 1m the persons who are embraced within its provisions," said Mr. Doolittle. " They seem to have peculiar notions in Wisconsin in regard to officers," said Mr. Trumbull; "and the Senator who has just 4oS THE THIRTT-.Xl.VTir CONGRESS. taken his seal regards it as a punishment that a man can not hold an office. Why, sir, how many suffering people there must be in this land! He says this is a bill of pains and penalties because certain persons can not hold office, and he even seems to think it would be preferable, in some instances, to be hanged. He wants to know of the Senator from Ohio if such persons are to be ex- cepted. This clause, I suppose, will not embrace those who arc to be hanged. When hung, they will cease to suffer the pains and penalties of being kept out of office. "Who ever heard of such a proposition a- that laid down by the Senator from Wisconsin, that a hill excluding men from office i- a hill of pains, ami penalties, and punishment? The Consti- tution of the United States declares that no one hut a native-born citizen of the United State- shall he President of the United States. Doe-, then, every person living in this land who dors not happen to have been horn within its jurisdiction undergo pains, and pen- alties, and punishment all his lite because by the Constitution he is ineligible to the Presidency? This is the Senator's posi- tion." Mr. Willey spoke in favor of the pending clause of the joint resolution. "I hope," said he, "that we shall hear no more out- cry about the injustice, the inhumanity, and the want of Christian spirit in thus incorporating into our Constitution precautionary measures that will forever prohibit these unfaithful men from again having any part in the Government." "The honorable Senator." remarked Mr. Davis in reply, " is a professor of the Christian religion, a follower of the lowly and humble Redeemer; but it seems to me that he forgot all the spirit of his Christian charity and faith in the tenor of the re- marks n\ hich he made." "This cry for blood and vengeance," exclaimed Mr. Saulsbury, "can not Last forever. The eternal God who -its above, whi essence i- love, and whose chief attribute i- mercy, says to all his creatures, whether in the open daylight or in the silent hours of the aight, ' Be charitable; he merciful." Mr. Doolittle proposed two amendment- to section three: the first to limit it- application to those who " voluntarily engaged in rebellion," and the second to except those " who have duly received amnesty and pardon." These propositions were both rejected by large majorities, only RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENT. 459 ten Senators voting for them. The third section, as proposed by Mr. Howard, was then adopted by a vote of thirty against ten. The death of General Scott having been the occasion of an adjournment of Congress, the consideration of the constitutional amendment was not resumed until the 4th of June. Mr. Hen- dricks moved to amend by including in the basis of representation in the Southern States three-fifths of the freedmen. Mr. Van Winkle offered an amendment providing that no person not ex- eluded from office by the terms of the third section shall be liable to any disability or penalty for treason after a term of years. Both of these propositions were rejected by the Senate. On the 5th of June, Mr. Poland, Mr. Stewart, and Mr. Howe addressed the Senate in favor of the constitutional amendment. Mr. Poland did not expect to be able to say any thing after six months' discussion of this subject. He took more hopeful views of the President's tractability than many others. "Although these propositions," said he, " may not, in all respects, correspond with the views of the President, I believe he will feel it to be his patriotic duty to acquiesce in the plan proposed, and give his powerful influence and support to procure their adoption." " While it is not the plan that I would have adopted," said Mr. Stewart, "still it is the best that I can get, and contains many excellent provisions." " I shall vote for the Constitutional amendment," said Mr. Howe, " regretfully, but not reluctantly. I shall vote for it re- gretfully, because it does not meet the emergency as I hoped the emergency would be met ; but I shall not vote for it reluctantly, because it seems to me just now to be the only way in which the emergency can be met at all." An issue of some personal interest arose between Mr. Howe and his colleague, Mr. Doolittle, which led them somewhat aside from the regular channel of discussion. " He has been a most fortunate politician," said Mr. Howe, " always to happen to have just those convictions which bore the highest price in the market." "That I ever intended in the slightest degree," replied Mr. Doolittle, "to swerve in my political action for the sake of offices or the price of offices in the market, is a statement wholly with- out foundation." Mr. Howe had said in substance that in 1848 Mr. Doolittle o Tin-: 7Y//7? rr-.v/.v 77/ congress. is acting with the Free Democratic party in New Turk, which was stronger than the Democratic party in that State. In L852, when he left the Free Democratic party, and acted with the Democratic party in Wisconsin, the Democratic party was in the majority in that State. He did not leave the Democratic party and join the Republican party in L854, but only in 1856, and then Wisconsin was no longer a Democratic State. Mr. Doolittle, after having given a detailed account of his pre- vious political career, remarked: "During the last six months, in the State of Wisconsin, no man has struggled harder than 1 ha 1 struggled to save the Union party, to save it t<> it.- platform, to save it t<> its principles, t<» save it to it- supremacy. For -ix months, from one end of Wisconsin to the other — ay, from Boston to St. Paul — by every <>ne of a certain class of newspapers I have been denounced as a traitor to tin' Union party because 1 saved it from defeat. Sir, it is not the first time in the hit of the world that nun have turned in to crucify their savior." On the same day, June 6th, Messrs. Hendricks, Sherman, Cowan, and others having participated in the discussion, the Sen- ate voted on another amendment offered by Mr. Doolittle, appor- tioning Representatives, after the census of L870, according to the number of legal voters in each State by the laws thereof. This proposition was rejected — yeas, 7; nay-, 31. On the 7th of June, Mr. Garrett Davis occupied the entire time devoted to the constitutional amendment in opposing that meas- ure, denouncing Congress, and praising the President. "There is a very great state of backwardness," -aid he, "in both houses of-Congress in relation to the transaction of the legitimate, proper, and useful portion of the public business; hut as to the business that i< of an illegitimate and mischievous character, and that i- calculated to produce results deleterious to the present and the future of the whole country, there has been a good deal, much too much, of progress made."" Of President Johnson Mr. Davis said: "He seems to he the man for the occasion : and his ability, resources, courage, and pa- triotism have developed to meet its great demands. If this ark which holds the rights and liberties of the American people is to he rescued and saved, he will he one of the chief instruments in the great work, and his -lory and tame will he deathless." On the Nth of June, the last day of the dJSOUSSion, the COnsti- RECOXSTR UCTIOJf AM E. \ D. WENT. 461 tutional amendment was opposed by Messrs. Johnson, McDougall; and Hendricks, and defended by Messrs. Henderson, Yates, and Howard. " Let us bring back the South," said Mr. Johnson, in closing his remarks, "so as to enable her to remove the desolation which has gone, through her borders, restore her industry, attend to her products, instead of keeping her in a state of subjection without the slightest necessity. Peace once existing throughout the land, the restoration of all rights brought about, the Union will be at once in more prosperous existence than it ever was ; and throughout the tide of time, as I believe, nothing in the future will ever cause us to dream of dissolution, or of subjecting any part, through the powerful instrumentality of any other part, to any dishonoring humiliation." " I went down once on the Mississippi," remarked Mr. Mc- Dougall, " at the opening of the war. I met a general of the Confederate army, and I took him by the hand and took him to my state-room, on board of my gun-boat. Said he, ( General/ throwing his arms around me, ' how hard it is that you and I have to fight.' That was the generosity of a combatant. I repeated to him, ' It is hard,' and he and I drank a bottle of wine or two — just as like as not. [Laughter.] This thing of bearing malice is one of the wickedest sins that men can bear under their clothes." Speaking of the third section, which had encountered great opposition, as inflicting undue punishment upon prominent reb- els, Mr. Henderson said : " If this provision be all, it will be an act of the most stupendous mercy that ever mantled the crimes of rebellion." " Let us suppose a case," said Mr. Yates. " Here is a man — Winder, or Dick Turner, or some other notorious character. He has been the cause of the death of that boy of yours. He has shot at him from behind an ambuscade, or he has starved him to death in the Anderson ville prison, or he has made him lie at Belle Isle, subject to disease and death from the miasma by which he was surrounded. When he is upon trial and the question is, 'Sir, are you guilty, or are you not guilty?' and he raises his blood-stained hands, deep-dyed in innocent and patriotic blood, the Senator from Pennsylvania rises and says, ' For God's sake ! do not deprive him of the right to go to the legislature.' The j;. 1 THE THIRTY-tflJfTH CONGRESS. idea is that if a man has forfeited his life, it is too great a pun- ish m to deprive him «>t" the privilege <>t' holding offi< • ." Speaking of radicalism j Mr. Yates remarked; "My fear i~ not that this Congress will lie too radical; I am nol afraid of this Congress being shipwrecked upon any proposition of radicalism; but I fear from timid and cowardly conservatism which will nol risk a greal people to take their destiny in their own hand;-, and u lc tin- great question upon the principles of equality, jus- tice, and liberality. That is my fear." Mr. Doolittle moved that the several sections of the amend- ment }>c submitted to the State- ;i< separate articles. This motion was rejected — yeas, 11; nays, 33. The vote was finally taken upon the adoption of the constitu- tional amendment as a whole. It passed the Senate by a major- ity of more than two-thirds, as follows: Feas — Messrs. Anthony, Chandler, Clark, Conness. Oragin, Creswell, Ed- munds, Fessenden, Foster, Grimes, Harris, Henderson, Howard, Howe, Kirkwiitid. Lane of Indiana, Lane of Kansas, M<>r_ r an. Morrill, Nye, Poland, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Trumbull, Wade, Willey, Williams, Wilson, ami Yates — 33. Nats — Messrs. Cowan, Davis, Doulittlc, (luthrio, Hendricks, Johnson, Mc- Dougall, Norton, Riddle, Saulsbury, ami Van Winkle — 11. On the 13th of June, the joint resolution, having been modified in the Senate, reappeared in the House for the concurrence of that branch of Congress. There was a short discussion of the measure as amended in the Senate. Messrs. Rogers, Finck, and Harding spoke against the resolution, and Messrs. Spalding, Henderson, and Stevens in its favor. "The first proposition/' said Mr. Rogers, "was tame in in- iquity, injustice, and violation of fundamental liberty to the one before ii-." " I say," siid Mr. Finck, "it is an outrage upon the people of those States who were compelled to give their aid and assistance in the rebellion. You propose to inflict upon these people a punishment not known to the law in existence at the time any offense may have been committed, but after the offense has been committed." "Let me tell you," said Mr. Harding, "you are preparing for revolutions after revolutions. I warn you there will be no peace RECOXSTR UCTIO.X . I. WENDMENT. ^63 in this country until each State be allowed to control its own citi- zens. If you take that from them, what care I for the splendid machinery of a national government?" Mr. Stevens briefly addressed the House before the final vote was taken. He had just risen from a sick-bed, and ridden to the Capitol at the peril of his life. During the quarter of an hour which he occupied in speaking, the solemnity was such as is sel- dom seen in that assembly. Members left their seats, and gath- ered closely around the venerable man to hear his brave and solemn words. From his youth he had hoped to see our institutions freed from every vestige of human oppression, of inequality of rights, of the recognized degradation of the poor and the superior caste of the rich. But that bright dream had vanished. "I find," said he, " that we shall be obliged to be content with patch- ing up the worst portions of the ancient edifice, and leaving it in many of its parts to be swept through by the tempests, the frosts, and the storms of despotism." It might be inquired why, with his opinions, he accepted so imperfect a proposition. " Because," said he, " I live among men, and not among angels ; among men as intelligent, as determined, and as independent as myself, who, not agreeing with me, do not choose to yield their opinions to mine." With an enfeebled voice, yet with a courageous air, he charged the responsibility for that day's patchwork upon the Executive. " With his cordial assist- ance," said Mr. Stevens, " the rebel States might have been made model republics, and this nation an empire of universal freedom; but he preferred f restoration ' to 'reconstruction.'" The question was taken, and the joint resolution passed the House by a vote of over three-fourths — 120 yeas to 32 nays. From the necessary absence of many members, the vote was not full, yet the relative majority in favor of this measure was greater than in the former vote. The following is the Constitutional Amendment as it passed both Houses of Congress : "ARTICLE — . "Sec. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States ; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due 464 THE TllIHTy-XlXTlI CONGRESS. process of law; nor deny to any person within it- jurisdiction the equal pro- tection of the laws. "Sec. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several Si according to their resj tive numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right t«» vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-Presidi at of the United States, Representatives in Congress, il xecutive and judicial officers of a State, or the memhers. of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in anv way abridged, except for par- ticipation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall hear to the whole number of such male citizens twenty-om age in such State. " Sbo. 3. \o person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United State-, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United State-, shall have en- gaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. "Sec. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave: but all BUCh debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void "Sec. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate '.■ lation, the provisions of this article." The President was requested to send the Amendment to the several States for ratification. On the 22d of June, President Johnson sen! a message to Con- gress informing them that the Secretary of State had transmitted to the Governors of the several States certified copies of the pro- posed amendment " These step-," said the President, " are to be considered as purely ministerial, and in no souse whatever com- mitting the Executive to an approval of the recommendation of the amendment." It seemed to the President a serious objection to tlio proposition " thai the joint resolution was not submitted by the two houses for the approval of the President, and that of the RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENT 465 thirty-six States which constitute the Union, eleven are excluded from representation." The President having no power under the Constitution to veto a joint resolution submitting a constitutional amendment to the people, this voluntary expression of opinion could not have been designed to have an influence upon the action of Congress. The document could have been designed by its author only as an ar- gument with the State Legislatures against the ratification of the Constitutional Amendment, and as a notice to the Southern peo- ple that they were badly treated. The President's message was received by Congress without comment, and referred to the Committee on Reconstruction. 30 AGO THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS CHAPTER XIX. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON RECONSTRUCTION". AX IMPORTANT STATE PaI'KR WORK OF THE COMMITTEE DIFFICULTY OF obtaining information — theory of the president — taxation and Representation — Disposition and doings of the Southern People — Conclusion of the Committee — Practical Recommendations. OX the 8th of June, the day on which the constitutional amendment passed the Senate, the report of the joint Com- mittee on Reconstruction was presented to Congress. Thi- important State paper had been looked for with great interest and no little anxiety by the people in all parts of the country. It \va< drawn up with marked ability, and was destined to have a most important hearing upon public opinion in reference to the great subject which, in all its bearings, it brought to the view of Congress and the country. The committee having had unrivalled opportunities for obtain- ing information, their conclusions commanded the respect of those who differed from them, and obtained the almost unanimous ap- proval of the party which carried the war to a successful close. Referring to the nature of the work which was required of them, the committee said : "Such an investigation, covering so large an extent el' territory, and in- volving »" many important considerations, must necessarily require no tri- lling labor, and consume a very considerable amount of time. It must em- brace the condition in which those States were left at the close of the war; the measures which have been taken toward the reorganization of civil gov- ernment, and the disposition of the people toward the United States— in a word, their fitness to take an active part in the administration »\' national affa The firsl Btep to bo taken by the committee, that of obtaining required information, and the difficulties attending it, were thus set forth : BECOXSTR UCTIOJV AM E \ 1>. 1/ EXT. J f 67 "A call was made on the President for the information in his possession as to what had been done, in order that Congress might judge for itself as to the grounds of belief expressed by him in the fitness of States recently in rebellion to participate fully in the conduct of national affairs. This in- formation was not immediately communicated. When the response was finally made, some six weeks after your committee had been in actual session, it was found that the evidence upon which the President seemed to have based his suggestions was incomplete and unsatisfactory. Authen- ticated copies of the constitutions and ordinances adopted by the conven- tions in three of the States had been submitted; extracts from newspapers furnished scanty information as to the action of one other State, and nothing appears to have been communicated as to the remainder. There was no evidence of the loyalty of those who participated in these conventions, and in one State alone was any proposition made to submit the action of the convention to the final judgment of the people. "Failing to obtain the desired information, and left to grope for light wherever it might be found, your committee did not deem it either advisable or safe to adopt, without further examination, the suggestions of the Presi- dent, more especially as he had not deemed it expedient to remove the mil- itary force, to suspend martial law, or to restore the writ of habeas corpus, but still thought it necessary to exercise over the people of the rebellious States his military power and jurisdiction. This conclusion derived greater force from the fact, undisputed, that in all those States, except Tennessee, and, perhaps, Arkansas, the elections which were held for State officers and members of Congress had resulted almost universally in the defeat of can- didates who had been true to the Union, and in the election of notorious and unpardoned rebels — men who could not take the prescribed oath of office, and who made no secret of their hostility to the Government and the people of the United States. "Under these circumstances, any thing like hasty action would have been as dangerous as it was obviously unwise. Tt appeared to your committee that but one course remained, viz. : to investigate carefully and thoroughly the state of feeling and opinion existing among the people of these States; to ascertain how far their pretended loyalty could lie relied upon, and thence to infer whether it would be safe to admit them at once to a full participa- tion in the Government they had fought for four years to destroy. It was an equally important inquiry whether their restoration to their former rela- tions with the United States should only be granted upon certain conditions and guarantees, which would effectually secure the nation against a recur- rence of evils so disastrous as those from which it had escaped at so enor- mous a sacrifice." The theory of the President, and those who demanded the im- mediate admission of Southern Senators and Representatives, was stated in the report to amount to this: " That, inasmuch as the lately insurgent States had no legal right to sep- arate themselves from the Union, they still retain their positions as States, 461 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS and, consequently, the people thereof hare a right to immediate representa- tion in Congress, without the imposition of any conditions whatever; and, further, that until such admission, Congress h;is no ri'Jit V> tax them tor the support of the Government It has even been contended that, until such admission, all legislation affecting their interests is, if not unconstitutional, at least unjustifiable and oppressive. " It is moreover contended that, from the moment when rebellion lays n it- arm*, and actual hostilities cease, all political rights of rebellious communities are at once restored; that because the people of a Statu of the I nion were once an organized community within the Union, thej nec< Bsarily mi remain, and their right to be represented in I - at any and all tin.- s, and to participate in the government of the country under all circum- Btanci s, admits of neither question nor dispute. If this is indeed true, then is the Government of the United States powerless for it- own protection, and flagrant rebellion, carried to the extreme of civil war, is a pastime which any State may play at, not only certain that it ran lose nothing, in any event, but may he the gainer by defeat. If rebellion succeeds, it accomplishes its purpose and destroys the Government If it fails, the war has been barren of results, and the battle may be fought out in the legislative halls of the country. Treason defeated in the field has only to take possession of Con gri 98 and the Cabinet." The committee in this report asserted: "It is more than idle, it is a mockery to contend that a people who have thrown oft' their allegiance, destroyed the local government which bound their States to the Union as members thereof, defied its authority, refused to execute it* laws, and ale.-. gated every provision which gave them political rights within the Union, -till retain through all the perfect and entire right to resume at their own will and pleasure all their privileges within the Union, and especially to participate in it.-, government and control the conduct of its affairs, To admit such a principle for one moment would be to declare that treasi n is always master and loyally a blunder. To a favorite argument of the advocates of immediate restora- tion of the rebel States, the report presented the following; reply : •'That taxation should be only with the consent of the people, through their own representatives, is a cardinal principle of all free government.-, but it is not true that taxation and representation must go together under all circumstances and at every moment of time. The people of the District of Columbia and of the Territories are taxed, although not represented in Congress If it be true that the people of the so-called Confederate State* have no riirht to throw off the authority of the United States, it is equally true that they are bound at all times to share the burdens of (Jovcrnment They can not. either legally or equitably, refuse to bear their just proportion of these burdens by voluntarily abdicating their rights and privileges as States of the Union, and refusing to be rcpre*ented in the councils of the RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENT. 409 nation, much loss by rebellion against national authority and levying war. To hold that by so doing they could escape taxation, would be to oiler a premium for insurrection — to reward instead of punishing treason." Upon the important subject of representation, which had occu- pied much of the attention of the committee and much of the time of Congress, the report held the following words : "The increase of representation, necessarily resulting from the abolition of slavery, was considered the most important element in the questions aris- ing out of the changed condition of affairs, and the necessity for some fundamental action in this regard seemed imperative. It appeared to your committee that the rights of these persons, by whom the basis of represen- tation had been thus increased, should be recognized by the General Gov- ernment. While slaves they were not considered as having any rights, civil or political. It did not seem just or proper that all the political advantages derived from their becoming free should be confined to their former masters, who had fought against the Union, and withheld from themselves, who had always been loyal. Slavery, by building up a ruling and dominant class, had produced a spirit of oligarchy adverse to republican institutions, which finally inaugurated civil war. The tendency of continuing the domination of such a class, by leaving it in the exclusive possession of political power, would be to encourage the same spirit and lead to a similar result. Doubts were entertained whether Congress had power, even under the amended Constitution, to prescribe the qualifications of voters in a State, or could act directly on the subject. It was doubtful in the opinion of your committee whether the States would consent to surrender a power they had always exercised, and to which they were attached. As the best, not the only method of surmounting all difficulty, and as eminently just and proper in itself, your committee comes to the conclusion that political power should be possessed in all the States exactly in proportion as the right of suffrage should be granted without distinction of color or race. This, it was thought, would leave the whole question with the people of each State, holding out to all the advantages of increased political power as an inducement to allow all to participate in its exercise. Such a proposition would be in its nature gentle and persuasive, and would tend, it was hoped, at no distant day. to an equal participation of all, without distinction, in all the rights and priv- ileges of citizenship, thus affording a full and adequate protection to all classes of citizens, since we would have, through the ballot-box, the power of self-protection. '•Holding these views, your committee prepared an amendment to the Constitution to carry out this idea, and submitted the same to Cong] Unfortunately, as we think, it did not receive the necessary constitutional support in the Senate, and. therefore, could not lie proposed for adoption by the States. The principle involved in that amendment is, however, believed to be sound, and your committee have again proposed it in another form, hoping that it may receive the approbation of Congress." Jfi Till: 77////7T-.W.V77/ CONGRESS The action of the people of the insurrectionary 3l I -. and their responses to the President's appeals, as showing their degree of preparation for immediate admission into Cong ffas thus set forth in the report : - , far oe the disposition of the people of the insurrectionarj - and the probability of their adopting measures conforming to the changed • ■■ o ditioD of affairs can be inferred, from the papers submitted by the President as the basis of hie action, the prospects are far from encouraging. It ap- pears quite clear that the antislavery amendments, both to th< S and leral Constitutions, wer d with reluctance by the bodies which did adopt them; and in some States they have been either passed by in silence or rejected. Tin' language of all the provisions and ordinances of the States mi the Bttbject amounts to nothing more than an unwilling admission of an unwelcome truth. As to the ordinance of secession, it is in some cases de- clared 'null and void,' and in others -imply 'repealed,' and in no case is a refutation of this deadly heres sidered worthy of a place in the new 3titutions. "If, as the President assumes, these insurrectionary States were, at the close of the war. wholly without State governments, it would seem that be- fore being admitted to participate in the direction of public affairs, such governments should be regularly organized. Long usage has established, and numerous statutes have pointed out, the mode in which this should be done A convention to frame a form of government should 1><> assembled under competent authority. Ordinarily this authority emanates from Con- gress; but under the peculiar circumstances, your committee is nol disposed to criticise the President's anion in assuming the power exercised by him in this regard. "The convention, when assembled, should frame a constitution of govern' im nt, which should be submitted to the people for adoption If adopted, a Legislature Bhould be convened to pass the laws necessary to carry it into Hi', i When a State thus organized claim- representation in Congress, the tion of Representatives should be provided for by law, in accordance with the law- of Congress regulating representation, and the proof, that the n has been in conformity to law, Bhould be submitted to Congn '• In no case have these essential preliminary steps 1 n taken. The vention obled seem to have assui 1 that the Constitution which had been repudiated and overthrown, was still in existence, and operative to constitute the States members of the Union, and to have contented them- Belves with such amendments as they were informed were requisite in order to insure their return to an immediate participation in the Government United States \nd without waiting to ascertain whether the people the represented would adopt even the proposed amendment-,, they at onoe called elections .,i' Representatives to Congress in nearly all instances bef< i an Executive had Keen chosen to issue certificates of election under the Stat.- law-, and Buch elections a- were held were ordered by the conven tions In one iu-taie • the writ- of election were signed by the RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENT. 471 provisional governor. Glaring irregularities and unwarranted assumptions of power are manifest in several cases, particularly in South Carolina, where the convention, although disbanded by the provisional governor on the ground that it was a revolutionary body, assumed to district the State." The report thus sets forth the conduct naturally expected of the Southern people, as contrasted with their actual doings : "They should exhibit in their acts something more than unwilling sub- mission to an unavoidable necessity — a feeling, if not cheerful, certainly not offensive and defiant, and should evince an entire repudiation of all hostility to the General Government by an acceptance of such just and favorable conditions as that Government should think the public safety demands. Has this been done ? Let us look at the facts shown by the evidence taken by the committee. Hardly had the war closed before the people of these insurrectionary States come forward and hastily claim as a right the priv- ilege of participating at once in that Government which they had for four years been fighting to overthrow. "Allowed and encouraged by the Executive to organize State govern- ments, they at once place in power leading rebels, unrepentant and unpar- doned, excluding with contempt those who had manifested an attachment to the Union, and preferring, in many instances, those who had rendered them- selves the most obnoxious. In the face of the law requiring an oath which would necessarily exclude all such men from Federal office, they elect, with very few exeptions, as Senators and Representatives in Congress, men' who had actively participated in the rebellion, insultingly denouncing the law as unconstitutional. "It is only necessary to instance the election to the Senate of the late Vice President of the Confederacy — a man who, against his own declared convictions, had lent all the weight of his acknowledged ability and of his inlluence as a most prominent public man to the cause of the rebellion, and who, unpardoned rebel as he is, with that oath staring him in the face, had the assurance to lay his credentials on the table of the Senate. Other rebels of scarcely less note or notoriety were selected from other quarters. Pro- fessing no repentance, glorying apparently in the crime they had committed, avowing still, as the uncontradicted testimony of Mr. Stephens and many others proves, an adherence to the pernicious doctrines of secession, and declaring that they yielded only to necessity, they insist with unanimous voice upon their rights as States, and proclaim they will submit to no con- ditions whatever preliminary to their resumption of power under that Con- stitution which they still claim the right to repudiate." Finally the report thus presented the " conclusion of the com- mittee : " " That the so-called Confederate States are not at present entitled to rep- resentation in the Congress of the United States; that before allowing such 472 THE THIRTY-jYIjYTH COX GUESS. representation, adequate security for future peace and safety should be re- quired; that this can only he found in Buch changes of the organic law as shall determine the civil rights and privileges of all citizen-; in all parts of the republic, shall place representation on an equitable basis, shall lix a stigma upon treason, and protect the loyal people against future claims for the expense incurred in support of rebellion and for manumitted Blavi together with an express grant of power in C - to enforce these pro- visions. To this end they have offered a joint resolution for amending tie- Constitution of the United States, and two several bills designed to carry tie- same into effect." The passage of the Constitutional Amendment by more than the necessary majority has been related. One of the bills to which reference is made in the above report — declaring certain officials of the so-called Confederate States ineligble to any office under the Government of the United .States — was placed in the amendment in lieu of the disfranchising clause. The other bill provided for "the restoration of the States lately in insurrection to their full rights" so soon as they should have ratified the pro- posed amendment. This bill was defeated in the House by a vote of To to 48. Congress thus refused to pledge itself in advance to make the amendment the sole test of the readniissioii of rebel States. Congress, however, clearly indicated a disposition to restore those States "at the earliest day consistent with the future peace and safety of the Union." The report and doings of the Committee of Fifteen, although by many impatiently criticised as dilatory, resulted, before the end of the first session of the Thirty- ninth Congress, in the reconstruction of one of the States lately in rebellion. RESTORATION OF TENNESSEE. 473 CHAPTER XX. RESTORATION OF TENNESSEE. Assembling op the Tennessee Legislature — Ratification of the Constitu- tional Amendment — Restoration of Tennessee proposed in Congress — The Government of Tennessee not Republican — Protest against the Preamble — Passage in the House — New Preamble proposed — The Presi- dent's Opinion deprecated and disregarded — Passage in the Senate — The President's Approval and Protest — Admission of Tennessee Mem- bers — Mr. Patterson's Case. THE most important practical step in the work of reconstruc- tion taken by the Thirty-ninth Congress was the restoration of Tennessee to her relations to the Union. Of all the re- cently rebellious States, Tennessee was the first to give a favorable response to the overtures of Congress by ratifying the Constitu- tional Amendment. Immediately on the reception of the circular of the Secretarv of State containing the proposed amendment, Governor Brownlow issued a proclamation summoning the Legislature of Tennessee to assemble at Nashville on the 4th of July. There are eighty-four seats in the lower branch of the Legis- lature of Tennessee. By the State Constitution, two-thirds of the seats are required to be full to constitute a quorum. The presence of fifty-six members seemed essential for the legal transaction of business. Every effort was made to prevent the assembling of the required number. The powerful influence of the President him- self was thrown in opposition to ratification. On the day of the assembling of the Legislature but fifty-two members voluntarily appeared. Two additional members were secured by arrest, so that the number nominally in attendance was fifty-four, and thus it remained for several days. It was ascertained that deaths and resignations had reduced the number 474 THE THIRTY- M.YTH CONGRESS. of actual members to seventy-two, and a Union cauem deter- mined to declare that fifty-four members should constitute a quo- rum. Two mure Onion members opportunely arrived, swellii the number present in the Capitol to fifty-six. Neither persua- sion nor compulsion availed to induce the two "Conservative members" to occupy their seats, and the house was driven to the expedient of considering the members who were under arrest and confined in a committee room, as present in their places. This having been decided, the constitutional amendment was imme- diately ratified. Governor Brownlow immediately sent the fol- lowing telegraphic dispatch to Washington: "Nashville, Tennessee, i . July 19 — 12 M. ■■ To Hon El M. Stanton, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C. "My compliments to the President. We have carried the Constitutional Amendment in the Housa Vote, 4o to 18; two of his tools refusing to vote. «W. G. BROWNLOW. On the 19th of July, the very day on which Tennessee voted to rat i t \ the amendment, and immediately alter the news wa- received in Washington, Mr, Bingham, in the House of Repre- sentatives, moved to reconsider a motion by which a joint resolu- tion relating; to the restoration of Tennessee had been referred to the Committee on Reconstruction. This joint resolution having been drawn up in the early part of the session, was not adapted to the altered condition of affairs resulting from the passage of the constitutional amendment in Congress. The motion to reconsider having passed, Mr. Bing- ham proposed the following substitute: "Joint resolution declaring Tennessee again entitled to Senators ami !;• presentat Ives in • long: ■•II The State of Tennessee has in good faith ratified the article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed by the Thirty- ninth Congr( 36 to the Legislatures of the several States, and has also shown, to the satisfaction of Congress, bj a proper spirit of obedience in the body of her people, her return to her due allegiance to the Government, laws, and authority of the United States : Therel ■■ B I by tht & H • ' •'■ f the D ', That the State of Tennessee is hereby restored to her former, proper, practical relation to the Union, and again en- titled t<> be represented bj Senators and Representatives in Congress, duly elected and qualified, upon their taking the oaths of office required by ex- isting laws." RESTORATION OF TENNESSEE. 475 On the following day. this joint resolution was the regular or- der, and gave rise to a brief discussion. Mr. Boutwell desired to offer an amendment providing that Tennessee should have representation in Congress whenever, in addition to having ratified the constitutional amendment, it should establish an " equal and just system of suffrage." Mr. Boutwell, although opposed to the joint resolution before the House, had no "technical" objections to the immediate restora- tion of Tennessee. "I am not troubled," said he, "by the informalities apparent in the proceedings of the Tennessee Legis- lature upon the question of ratifying the constitutional amend- ment. It received the votes of a majority of the members of a full house, and when the proper officers shall have made the cus- tomary certificate, and filed it in the Department of State, it is not easy to see how any legal objection can be raised, even if two- thirds of the members were not present, although that proportion is a quorum according to the constitution of the State." Mr. Boutwell declared that his objections to the pending meas- ure were vital and fundamental. The government of Tennessee was not republican in form, since under its constitution more than eighty thousand male citizens were deprived of the right of suffrage. The enfranchisement of the freedmen of Tennessee should be the beginning of the great work of reconstruction upon a republican basis. " We surrender the rights of four million people," said Mr. Boutwell in concluding his remarks; "we sur- render the cause of justice; we imperil the peace and endanger the prosperity of the country ; we degrade ourselves as a great party which has controlled the government in the most trying times in the history of the world." Mr. Higby thought that Tennessee should not be admitted without a restriction that she should not be allowed any more representation than that to which she .would be entitled were the constitutional amendment in full operation and effect. Mr. Bingham advocated at considerable length the immediate re-t oration of Tennessee. "Inasmuch," said he, "as Tennessee has conformed to all our requirements; inasmuch as she has, by a majority of her whole legislature in each house, ratified the amendment in good faith; inasmuch as she has of her own vol- untary will conformed her constitution and laws to the Constitu- tion and laws of the United States; inasmuch as she has by her 476 THE THIRTY-XIXTir CONGRESS. fundamental law forever prohibited the assumption or payment of the rebel debt, or the enslavement of men; inasmuch as she has by her own constitution declared thai rebels shall not exer- ercise any of the political power of the State or vote at elections ; and thereby given the American people assurance of her deter- mination to -iann the day succeeding this action in the House, the joint r< - - lntion came up for consideration in the Senate. After a consider- able discussion, the resolution as it passed the If. use was adopted by the Senate. In place of the preamble which was passed by the House, Mr. Trumbull proposed the following substitute: • Wht as, In the year 1861, the government of the State of Tennessee was Beized upon and taken possession of by persons in hostility to the I nited States, and tie- inhabitants of said State in [.nr-uance of an act of < were declared to be in a state of insurrection against the United Stat--; and whereas said State government can only 1"' restored to its former political relations in the Union by the consent of the law-making power of the I cited States; and whereas tie- people of said Stat- did on tie- '-"Jd of February, 1 365, by a large popular vote adopt and ratify a constitution of government whereby slavery was abolished, and all ordinances and laws of secession and debts contracted under the same were declared void; and whereas a gtai rnment has been organized under Baid constitution which has ratified the amendment to the Constitution of the United States abolishing Blavery, also the amendment proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, and has ■lull.- other acts proclaiming and denoting loyalty: Therefore. Mr. Sherman opposed the substitution of this preamble. " These political dogma-." Baid he, "can not receive the sanction of the RESTORATION OF TENNESSEE. 477 Provident; and to insert them will only create delay, and post- pone the admission of Tennessee." " 1 pay no regard," said Mr. Wade, " to all that has been said here in relation to the President probably vetoing your bill, for any thing he may do, in my judgment, is entirely out of order on this floor. Sir, in olden times it was totally inadmissible in the British Parliament for any member to allude to any opinion that the king might entertain on any thing before the body; and much more, sir, ought an American Congress never to permit any mem- ber to allude to the opinion that the Executive may have upon any subject under consideration. He has his duty to perform, and we ours ; and we have no right whatever under the Consti- tution to be biased by any opinion that he may entertain on any subject. Therefore, sir, I believe that it is, or ought to be, out of order to allude to any such thing here. Let the President do what he conceives to be his duty, and let us do ours, without be- ing biased in any way whatever by what it may be supposed he will do." Mr. Brown entered his disclaimer. " Republicanism," said he, " means nothing if it means not impartial, universal suffrage. Republicanism is a mockery and a lie if it can assume to admin- ister this government in the name of freedom, and yet sanction, as this act will, the disfranchisement of a large, if not the largest, part of the loyal population of the rebel States on the pretext of color and race." The question being taken on the passage of the preamble as substituted by the Senate, together with the resolution of the House, resulted in twenty-eight Senators voting in the affirma- tive, and four in the negative. The latter were Messrs. Brown, Buckalew, McDougal, and Sumner. The House concurred in the amendment of the Senate, without discussion, and the joint resolution went to the President for his approval. On the 24th of July, the President, not thinking it expedient to risk a veto, signed the joint resolution, and at the same time sent to the House his protest against the opinions presented in the preamble. After having given his objections to the pre- amble and resolution at considerable length, the President said : "I have, notwithstanding the anomalous character of this pro- ceeding, affixed my signature to the resolution. [General ap- 478 THE THIRTT-.xrXTH CONGRESS. plause and laughter.] My approval, however, ie not to be < strued as an acknowledgment of the right of Congress to pass laws preliminary to the admission of duly-qualified representa- tives from any of the Stal [Greal laughter.] Neither is it to be considered as committing me to all the statements made in the preamble, [renewed laughter,] sonic of which are, in my opinion, without foundation in tact, especially the assertion that the State of Tennnessee has ratified the amendment to the Con- stitution of the United States proposed by the Thirty-ninth Con- gress" [Laughter.] After the reading of the Pesident's Message, Mr. Stevens said: " Inasmuch as the joint resolution has become a law by the entire and cordial approval of the President, [laughter,] I am joint com- mittee on reconstruction to ask that that committee be discharged from the further consideration of the credentials of the members elect from the State of Tennessee, and to move that the same be referred to the Committee of Elections of this House." This motion was passed. At a later hour of the same day's session, Mr. Dawes, of the Committee on Elections, having per- mission to report, said that the credentials of the eight Repre- sentatives elect from Tennessee had been examined, and were fOund in conformity with law. He moved, therefore, that the gentlemen be sworn in as members of the House from the State of Tennessee. Horace Maynard and other gentlemen from Tennessee then went forward amid applause, and took the oath of office. On the day following, Joseph S. Fowler was sworn in, and took his seat as a Senator from Tennessee. The next day Mr. Fowler presented the credentials of David T. Patter-on as a Senator elect from Tennessee. A motion was made that these credentials he referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, with instructions to inquire into the qualifications of Mr. Patterson. The circumstances in this ease were peculiar. Mr. Patterson had been elected circuit judge by the people of East Tennessee in 1. His term of office expired in 1"2, after Tennessee had passed the ordinance of secession and became a member of the Southern Confederacy. He was a firm, avowed, and influential Union man. and in the exercise of the duties of his office did much to protect the interests of loyal men. Persons who were RESTORATION OF TE.Y.YfiSSEE. 479 opposed to secession, which with lawless violence was sweeping over the State, felt the importance of having the offices filled by Union men. Mr. Patterson was urged to again become a candi- date for judge. He reluctantly consented, and was elected by a large majority over a rebel candidate. Governor Harris sent his commission, with peremptory orders that he should immediately take the oath to support the Southern Confederacy. Judge Pat- terson delayed and hesitated, and consulted other Union men as to the proper course to be pursued. They advised and urged him to take the oath. By so doing he could afford protection, to some extent, to Union men, against acts of lawless violence on the part of rebels. He was advised that, if he did not accept the office, it would be filled by a rebel, and the people would be oppressed by the civil as well as the military power of the rebels. He yielded to these arguments and this advice, and took the oath prescribed by the Legislature, which in substance was that he Mould support the Constitution of Tennessee and the Constitution of the Confederate States. He declared at the time that he owed no allegiance to the Confederate Government, and did not con- sider that part of the oath as binding him at all. Judge Patterson held a few terms of court in counties when he could organize grand juries of Union men, and did something toward preserving peace and order in the community. He aided the Union people and the Union cause in every possible way, and thus became amenable to the hostility of the secessionists, who subjected him to great difficulty and danger. He was several times arrested, and held for some time in custody. At times he was obliged to conceal himself for safety. He spent many nights in out-buildings and in the woods to avoid the vengeance of the rebels. In September, 1863, the United States forces under General Burnside having taken possession of Knoxville, Mr. Patterson succeeded, with his family, in making his escape to Knoxville, and did not return to his home until after the close of the re- bellion. The Committee on the Judiciary having taken into considera- tion the above and other palliating circumstances, proposed a resolution that Mr. Patterson "is duly qualified and entitled to hold a seat in the Senate." On motion of Mr. Clark this reso- lution was amended to read, "that, upon taking the oaths re- 480 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. quired by the Constitution and the laws, lie be admitted to a seat ill the Senate." It was, h«»we\-er, thought better by the Senate to pass a joint resolution that in the case of Mr. Patterson there should be omitted from the test oath the following words: "That I have neither sought, nor accepted, nor attempted to exercise the (unc- tions of any office whatever under any authority, or pretended authority, in hostility to the United State-." This joint resolu- tion having passed the Senate, was immediately sent to the House of Representatives, then in session, and at once came up before that body for consideration. The resolution was eloquently advo- cated by Messrs. Maynard and Taylor, and opposed by Mr. Stokes, all of Tennessee. " On the night of the 22d of February last," said Mr. Stokes, "I delivered a speech in Nashville, and there and then declared, if admitted as a member of this House, I would freeze to my seat before I would vote to repeal the test oath. [Long-continued applause on the floor and in the galleries.] I have made the same declaration in many speeches since then. " Sir, I regard the test oath passed by the United States Con- gress as the salvation of the Union men of the South as well as of the North. I regard it as sacred as the flaming sword which the Creator placed in the tree of life to guard it, forbidding any one from partaking of the fruit thereof who 'was not pure in heart. Sir, this is no light question. Repeal the test oath and you per- mit men to come into Congress and take seats who have taken an oath to the Confederate Government, and who have aided and assisted in carrying out its administration and laws. That is what we arc now asked to do. Look back to the 14th of August, 1861, the memorable day of the proclamation issued by Jefferson Davis, ordering every man within the lines of the confederacy who still held allegiance to the Federal Government to leave within forty- eight hours. That order compelled many to seek for hiding-places who could not take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate Government. When the rebel authorities said to our noble Governor of Tennessee, ' We will throw wide open the prison doors and let you out, if you will swear allegiance to our gov- ernment,' what was his reply? 'You may sever my head from my body, but I will never take the oath to the Confederal Government.'" RESTORATION OF TENNESSEE. 48 1 Mr. Conkling said: "I should be recreant to candor were L to attempt to conceal ray amazement at the scene now passing before us. Only eight short days ago and eleven States were silent and absent here, because they laid participated in guilty rebellion, and because they were not in lit condition to share in the government and control of this country. Seven short days ago we found one of these Slates with loyalty so far retrieved, one State so far void of present offenses, that the ban was withdrawn from her, and she again was placed on an equal footing with the most favored States in the Union. The doors were instantly thrown open to her Senators and Representatives, the whole case was disposed of, and the nation approved the act. Here the matter should have rested ; here it should have been left forever undisturbed. But no; before one week has made its round, we are called upon to stultify ourselves, to wound the interests of the nation, to surren- der the position held by the loyal people of the country almost unanimously, and the exigency is that a particular citizen of Ten- nessee seeks to effect his entrance to the Senate of the United States without being qualified like every other man who is permitted to enter there. "We are asked to drive a plowshare over the very foundation of our position; to break down and destroy the bulwark by which we may secure the results of a great war and a great history, by which we may preserve from defilement this place, where alone in our organism the people never lose their supremacy, except by the recreancy of their Representatives; a bulwark without which we may not save our Government from disintegration and dis- grace. If we do this act, it will be a precedent which will carry fatality in its train. From Jefferson Davis to the meanest tool of despotism and treason, every rebel may come here, and we shall have no reason to assign against his admission, except the arbi- trary reason of numbers." Mr. Conkling closed by moving that the joinl resolution be laid on the table, which was carried by a vote of eighty-eight to thirty-one. During the same day's session — which was protracted until seven o'clock of Saturday morning, July 28th — the same subject came up again in the Senate, on the passage of the resolution to admit Mr. Patterson to a seat in the Senate upon his taking the oaths required by the Constitution and laws. After some dis- 31 48 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. cussion, the resolutioD passed, twenty-one voting in the affirma- tive :in the immediate consideration of the •. it was decided that it must be deferred under a rule of the Senate until after t!i" expiration of sis days from the com- mencement "f tin - ssion. It i- proper here to present a brief record <>i" tin- proceedi upon the subject during the preceding -'--ion. The pass if a bill in the House of 11 presentatives, and tin' discussion upon the subject in that body arc given in a preceding chapter. This bill, Mr. Morrill subsequently said in the Senate, was ii"t an elec- tion bill, and conferred no right of voting upon any person I yond what they had before. It was a mere declaration of a right to vote. A- such, the hill was favorably received by the Senate Committee to whom it was referred, and was by them reported back with favor, but was never put upon it- passage. Meanwhile the Senate Committee had under consideration a hill of their own. which tiny reported on the 10th of January. This hill provided for restricted suffrage, requiring the qualific - tion to read and write. Mr. Yates, an original and uncom- promising advocate of universal suffrage was opposed to this restriction. lie was a member of the Committee on the District of Columbia, but had been prevented from being - nt in its deliberations when it was resolved to report the hill a- then I fore the Senate. Fearing that the hill might pa- the Senate w'uh the objectionable restrictions, Mr. Yates moved that it he recommitted, which was done. A.t a meeting of the committee called to reconsider the hill. Mr. Yates argued :it length and with earnestness against disfranchise- ment on the -round of inability to read and write. The commit- tee reversed their former decision, and reported the hill substan- tially in the form in which it subsequently became a law. The hill being before the Senate on the loth of January, 1866, Mr. Garrett Davis opposed it in a 3peech ofgreal length. He made use of every argumenl and referred to every authority within his ch to prove the inferiority of the negro race. After giving ( ' definition of the " negro," the Senator remarked :" The great naturalist might have added a- other distinctive character- NEGRO SUFFRAGE. 485 istics of the negro; first, that his skin exhales perpetually a peculiar pungent and disagreeable odor; .second, thai Mho hollow of his foot makes a hole in the ground.'" The Senator dww a fearful picture of the schemes of Massachusetts to use the n< voters, which it was her policy to create in the South. This subject did not again come up in the Senate until after the lapse of several months. On the 27th of June it was "dis- entombed" from what many supposed was its final resting place. Mr. Morrill proposed as an amendment that the elective franchise should be restricted to persons who could read and write. This was rejected; fifteen voting in the affirmative, and nineteen in the negative. Mr. Willey opposed the bill before the Senate in a speech of considerable length. He advocated the bestowal of a qualified and restricted suffrage upon the colored people of the District. His chief' objection to the measure before the Senate was that it was untimely. "Any thing not essential in itself'/' said he, "or very material to the welfare of the nation, or a considerable part of the nation, if it is calculated to complicate our difficulties, or inflame party passions or sectional animosities, had better be left, it appears to me, to a more propitious hour." The " propitious hour " hoped for by the Senator, did not come ar mnd until after the opening of the second session. The subjecl did not again seriously occupy the attention of the Senate, with the exception of Mr. Sumner's effort to have it taken up on the first day of the session, until the 10th day of December, 1866. On that day, Mr. Morrill, who, as Chairman of the Commii on the District of Columbia, had bill in charge, introduced the subject with a speech of considerable length. " This measure," said he, "not only regulates the elective franchise in this District, but it extends and enlarges it. The principal feature of the bill is that it embraces the colored citizens of the District of Columbia. in this particular it is novel, and in this particular it i- im- portant. In this particular it may be said to be inaugurating a policy uoi only strictly lor the District of Columbia, but in some sense for the country at large. In this respect it is, I suppose, thai this bill ha- received so large a share of the public attention during the last session and the recess of the Congress of the United States." Mr. Morrill called attention to the remonstraD fthe Mayor : r .s,; THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. of Washington, who had informed the Senate that in an election held for the purpose of ascertaining the sentiments of the voters of the city upon the subject, some six thousand five hundred w opposed to the extension of the elective franchise, while only thirty or forty were in favor of it. "These six or seven thousand voters," said Mr. Morrill, "i only one in thirty at most of the people of this District, and i< is very difficult to understand how there could be more signi cance or probative force attached to th or seven thousand vot<~ than t<> an equal number of voices independent of the ballot, under the circumstances. This is a matter affecting the capital ,,f the nation, one in which the Aineriean people have an inter- est, a- indirectly, at least, touching the country at large. What the National Congress pronounce here a- a matter of right or expediency, or both, touching a question of popular rights, may have an influence elsewhere for good or for evil. We can not well justify the denial of* the right of suffrage to colored citizt - on the protest of the voters of the corporation of Washington. We may not think lit to grant it -imply on the prayer of the petitioners. Our action should rest on some recognized general principle, which, applied to the capital of the nation, would he equally just applied to any of the political communities of which the nation is composed." In closing his speech, Mr. Morrill remarked: " In a nation of professed freemen, whose political axioms arc those of universal liberty ami hitman rights, no public tranquillity i- possible while these rights are denied to portions of the American people. We have taken into the bosom of the Republic the diverse elements of the nationalities of Europe, and are attempting to mold them into national harmony and unity, and are .-till inviting other mil- lions to come to us. Let us not despair that the same mighty energies and regenerating forces will be able to assign a docile and not untractable race it- appropriate place in our system." Mr. Willey's amendment, proposed when the subject was last usidered in the previous session, -i\ month- before, being now the pending question, it- author addressed the Senate in favor of some restrictions upon the exercise of the elective franch "There ought to he some obligation," said he, "either in our fundamental laws in the State-, or somewhere, by some means requiring the peoDle to educate themselves; and if this can be NEGRO SUFFRAGE. 487 accomplished by disqualifying those who are not educated for the exercise of the right of suffrage, thus stimulating them to acquire a reasonable degree of education, that of itself, it seems to me, would be a public blessing." " 1 am against this qualification of reading and writing," said Mr. Wilson; "I never did believe in it. I do not believe in it now. I voted against it in my own State, and I intend to vote against it here. There was a time when I would have taken it, because I did not know that we could get any thing more in this contest; but I think the great victory of manhood suffrage is about achieved in this country.'' " Reading and writing, as a qualification for voting," said Mr. Pomcroy, " might be entertained in a State where all the people were allowed to go to school and learn to read and write ; but it seems to me monstrous to apply it to a class of persons in this community who were legislated away from school, to whom every avenue of learning was shut up by law." Some discussion was elicited by a proposition made by Mr. Anthony to attach to Mr. Willey's amendment a provision ex- cluding from the right to vote all " who in any way voluntarily gave aid and comfort to the rebels during the late rebellion." This was opposed by Mr. Wilson. " We better not meddle with that matter of disfranchisement," said he. " There are but few of these persons here, so the prohibition will practically not amount to any thing. As we are to accomplish a great object, to establi>h universal suffrage, we should let alone all propositions excluding a few men here. Disfranchisement will create more feeling and more bitterness than enfranchisement." Mr. Willey's amendment was finally so much " amended" that he could not support it himself, and it received but one affirmative vote, that of Mr. Kirkwood. Mr. Cowan proposed to amend the bill by striking out the word "male" before the word "person," that females might enjoy the elective franchise. " I propose to extend this privilege," said he, " not only to males, but to females as well ; and 1 should like to hear even the most astute and learned Senator upon this floor give any better reason for the exclusion of females from the right of suffrage than there is for the exclusion of negroes. "If you want to widen the franchise so as to purify your ballot-box, throw the virtue of the country into it ; throw the 488 THE THIRTY-XIjYTH CONGRESS. temperance of the country into it ; throw the purity of the country into ir ; tlimw the angel element — if I may so express myself — into it. [Laughter.] Lei thi r be as little diabolism as possible, but as much of the divinity as you can get." The discussion being resumed on the following day, Mr. An- thony advocated Mr. Cowan's amendment. " I suppose," said I . " that the Senator from Pennsylvania introduced this amendment rather as a satire upon the bill itself, or if he had any serious in- tention, ii was only a mischievous one to injure the bill. But it will not probably have that effect, for I suppose uol ody will vo for it except the Senator himself, who can hardly avoid it. and I. who shall vote for it because it accords with a conclusion to which I have been brought by considerable study upon the subject of suffrage." After having answered objections against female suffrage, Mr. Anthony remarked in conclusion: " I should not have introduced this question ; but as it has been introduced, and I intend to vote for the amendment, I desire to declare here that 1 shall vote for it in all seriousness, because I think it is right. The discussion of this subject is not confined to visionary enthusiasts. It is now attracting the attention of some of the besl thinkers in the world. both in this country and in Europe; and one of the very besl of them all, John Stuart Mill, in a most elaborate and able paper, has declared his conviction of the right and justice of female suf- frage. The time has not come for it. but the time is coming. It is coming with the progress of civilization and the general ame- lioration of the race, and the triumph of truth, and justice, and equal rights." Mr. Williams opposed the pending amendment. "To extend the righl of suffrage to the negroes in this country," said be, " 1 think is necessary for their protection; but to extend the right of suffrage to women, in my judgment, is nol necessary for their protection. Wide as the poles apart are the condition- of these tw,, classes of persons. 'The sons defend and protect the reputa- tion and rights of their mother-: husbands defend and protect the reputation and rights of their wives; brothers defend and proteel the reputation and rights of their sisters; and to honor, cherish, and love the women of this country is the pride and the glory of it- -ons. •• When the women of this country come to be sailors and sol- .YEGRO SUFFRAGE. 489 diers ; when they come to navigate the ocean and to follow the plow; when they love to be jostled and crowded by all sorts of men in the thoroughfares of trade and business; when they love the treachery and the turmoil of polities ; when they love the dis- soluteness of the camp, and the smoke of the thunder, and the blood of battle better than they love the affections and enjoy m< of home and family, then it will be time to talk about making the women voters; but until that time, the question is not fairly bet'. ire the country ." Mr. Cowan defended his amendment and his position. "When the time comes," said he, "I am a Radical, too, along - with my fellow Senators here. By what warrant do they suppose that I am not interested in the progress of the race? If the thine, is to be bettered, I want to better it." Mr. Morrill replied to the speech of Mr. Cowan. " Does any sup- >." said Mr. Morrill, "that he is at all in earnest or sincere in a single sentiment he has uttered on this subject? I do not im- agine he believes that any one here is idle enough for a moment to suppose so. If it is true, as he intimates, that he is desirous of becoming a Radical, I am not clear that I should not be willing to accept his service, although there is a good deal to be repented of before he can be taken into full confidence. [Laughter.] "When a man has seen the error of his ways and confesses it, what more is there to be done except to receive him seventy and seven times? Now, if this is an indication that the honorable Senator means to out-radical the Radicals, ' Come on, Macduff,' nobody will object, provided yon can show us you are sincere. That is the point. If it is mischief you are at, you will have a hard time to get ahead. While we are radical we mean to be rational. While we intend to give every male citizen of the United State- the rights common to all, we do not intend to be forced by our enemies into a position so ridiculous and absurd as to be broken down utterly on that question, and who ever comes here in the guise of a Radical and undertakes to practice that probably will not make much by the motion. I am not sur- ed that those of our friends who went out from us and have been feeding on the husks desire to get in ahead; but I am sur- prised at the indiscretion and the want of common s mse exercised in making so profound a plunge at once! If these gentlemen desire to be taken into companion-hip and. restored t" good stand- 490 Till-: THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. ing I am the first man to reach out the hand and say, ' Welcome back again, so that you are repentant and regenerated; 5 but, sir, I am the last man to allow that you shall indorse what you call Radic lism for the purpose of breaking down measures which we propose ! " " He alleges/' replied Mr. Cowan, "that I am uol serious in the amendment I have moved ; that I am not in earnest about it. How does he know? By what warrant does he undertake to say that a brother Senator here is not serious, not in earnest? I should like to know by what warrant he undertakes to do that. He says I do not look serious. 1 have not perhaps been trained in the same vinegar and persimmon school, [laughter;] 1 have not been doctrinated into the same solemn nasal twang which may characterize the gentleman, and which may be considered to be the evidence of seriousness and earnestness. I generally speak as a man, and as a good-natured man, I think. I hope 1 enter- tain no malice toward any body. Bui the honorable Senator thinks that 1 want to become a Radical. Why, sir, common charity on-lit to have taught the honorable Senator better than that. I think no such imputation, even on the part of the most virulent opponent that I have, can with any justice be laid to my door. I have never yielded to his radicalism; 1 have never truckled to it. Whether it be righl or wrong, I have nc\ bowed the knee to it. From the very word f go 3 1 have been a Conservative ; 1 have endeavored to save all in our institutions that 1 thought worth saving." Mr. Wade had introduced the original hill, and had put it upon the most liberal principle of franchise. " The question of female suffrage," said he, "had not then Inch much agitated, and 1 kmw the community had not thought sufficiently upon it to he ready to introduce it as an element in our political system. While I am aware of that i'aet, I think it will puzzle an\ gentle- man i o draw a line of demarcation between the right of the male and the female on this subject. Both are liable to all the laws you pass; their property, their persons, and their lives are affected by the law-. Why, then, should not the females have a right to participate in their construction a- well as the male part n[' the communit) '.' There i- no argument that 1 can conceive or that 1 have vet heard that make- any discrimination between the two on the question of right. NEGRO SUFFRAGE. 491 " I shall give a vote on this amendment that will be deemed an unpopular vote, but I am not frightened by that. T have been accustomed to give such votes all my life almost, but I be- lieve they have beeu given in the cause of human liberty and right and in the way of the advancing intelligence of our age; and whenever the landmark has been set up the community have marched up to it. I think I am advocating now the same kind of a principle, and I have no doubt that sooner or later it will become a fixed fact, and the community will think it just as ab- surd to exclude females from the ballot-box as males." Mr. Yates opposed the pending amendment, deeming it a mere attempt on the part of the Senator from Pennsylvania to embar- rass this question. "Logically," said he, "there are no reasons in my mind which would not permit women to vote as well as men, according to the theory of our government. But that ques- tion, as to whether ladies shall vote or not, is not at issue now. I confess that I am for universal suffrage, and when the time comes, I am for suffrage by females as well as males." " While I will vote now," said Mr. Wilson, " or at any time, for woman suffrage as a distinct, separate measure, I am unal- terably opposed to connecting that question with the pending question of negro suffrage. The question of negro suffrage i- now an imperative necessity; a necessity that the negro should possess it for his own protection; a necessity that he should pos- sess it that the nation may preserve its power, its strength, and its unity." "Why was the consideration of this measure discontinued at the last session, and the bill not allowed to pass the Senate?" asked Mr. Hendricks. " The bill passed the House of Representative- early in the session," replied Mr. Wilson. " it came to the Senate early in December. That Senator, I think, knows very well that we had no! the power to pass it for the first five or six months of the ■in; that is, we had not the power to make it a law. We could not have; carried it against the opposition of the President of ill.- United State-, and we had assurances of gentlemen who were in intimate relations with him that his signature would not be obtained. It would not have been wise for us to pass the bill if it was to encounter a veto, unless we were able to pass it over that veto. The wise course was to bide our time until we had 77/ E THIRTY-NINTM CONGRESS. that power, and that power came before the close of the session, but ii came in the time of great pressure, when other questions were crowding upon as, and ii was tboughl best by those who were advocating it, especially as the chairman of the committee, the Senator from Main.', [Mr. Morrill,] was out of the Senate for many days on account of illness, to let the bill go over until this I December." Mr. Johnson opposed the pending amendment. " 1 think It* it submitted to the ladi -." said he—" I mean the ladies in the true acceptation of the term — of the United States, the privilege would not only not be asked for, but would be rejected. I do nol think the ladies of the United States would agree to enter into a canvass and undergo what is oft< o the degradation of seek- ing to vote, particularly in the cities, getting up to the polls, crowded out and crowded in. I rather think they would feel it, in-t<-ad of a privilege, a dishonor." Mr. Johnson was unwilling to vote for the amendment with a view t" defeal the bill. " 1 have lived to be too old," said he, "and have become too well satisfied of what I think is my duty to the country to give any vote which I do not believe, it' it should be supported by the votes of a sufficient number to carry the measure into operation, would redound to the interests and safety and honor of the country." "The women of America," said Mr. Frelinghuysen, "vote by faithful and true representatives, their husbands, their brothers, their sons; and no true man will go to the polls and deposit his ballot without remembering the true and loving constituency that he has at home. More than that, sir, ninety-nine out of a hundred, I believe nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand, of the women in America do not want the privilege of voting in any other manner than that which 1 have sta In both these n gards there is a vast difference betwi en the situa- tion of the colored citizens and the women of America. "The learned and eloquenl Senator from Pennsylvania said irday with great beauty that he wanted to cast the angel dement into the suffrage 3ystem of America. Sir, it seems to me, thai it would be ruthlessly tearing the angel element from the homi - of America : and the homes of the people of Ann rica aiv infinitely more valuable than any suffrage system. It will be NEGU< ) SUFFR IGE. 493 a sorry day for this country when those vestal fires of piety and love are put out." On the next day, December 12th, the discus-ion being resumed, Mr. Brown advocated the amendment. " I stand," said he, " for universal suffrage, and as a matter of fundamental principle do noi recognize the right of society to limit it on any ground of race, color, or sex. I will go further and say that I recognize the right of franchise as being intrinsically a natural right; and 1 do not believe that society is authorized to impose any limita- tion upon it that does not sprint;' out of the necessities of the i d state itself/' Believing "that the metaphysical always controls the practical in all the affairs of life," Mr. Brown nave the "abstract grounds" upon which he deemed the right of woman to the elective fran- chise rested. Coming finally to the more practical bearings of the subject, he answered the objection, that "if women arc en- titled to the rights of franchise, they would correspondingly come under the obligation to bear arms." "Are there not large classes," he asked, "even among men in this country, who are exempt from service in our armies for physical incapacity and for other reasons'? And if exemptions which appertain to males may be recognized as valid, why not similar exemptions for like reasons when applied to females? Does it not prove that there is nothing in the argument so far as it involves the question of right? There are Quakers and other religious sect-; there are ministers of the Gospel; persons having conscientious scruples; indeed, all men over a certain age who under the laws of many of the States are released from service of that character. Indeed, it is the boast of this republic that ours is a volunteer military establishment. Hence I say there is nothing in the position that because she may not be physically qualified for service in your army, therefore you have the right to deny her the franchise on the score of sex." Tn closing an extended speech, Mr. Brown remarked: " Even though I recognize the impolicy of coupling these two measures in this manner and at this time, I shall yet record my vote in the affirmative as an earnest indication of my belief in the principle, and my faith in the future." .Mr. Davis made another protracted speech against both the amendment and the original bill. "The great God," said he, M.94 the Tinirrv-.vrxTir congress. "who created all the races, and in every race gave to man woman, never intended that woman should take part in national govern- i.i< nt anion-- any people, or that the negro, the lowest, should ever have coordinate and equal power with the hig . the white race, in any government, national or domesti In conclusion, Mr. Davis advised the late n isl this eat, this most foul, cruel, and dishonoring i - meut. Men of the South, exhaust every peaceful means of >vhen your oppressions become unendurable, and it is demonstrated that there i< no other hope, then strike for your liberty, and strike - did your fathers in 1776, and as did the Hollanders and Zea- landers, led by William the Silent, to break their chains forged by the tyrants of Spain." " When it is necessary," said Mr. Sprague, "that woman shall vote for the support of liberty and equality, I shall be ready to cast my vote in their favor. The black man'- vote is necessary to this at this time. Do not prostrate all the industrial interests of the North by a pojicy of conciliation and of inaction. Delay- are dangerous, criminal. When you shall have established, firmly and fearlessly, governments at the South friendly to the republic; when you shall have ceased from receiving term- and propositi* from the leaders of the rebellion as to their reconstruction ; wli. n you shall have promptly acted in the interest of liberty, prosper- ity will light upon the industries of your people, and panics, com- mercial and mercantile revolutions, will be placed afar off; and never, sir, until that time shall have arrived. And as an humble advocate of all industrial interests of the \'o-r people of the North, white and black, and as an humble representative of these inter- 3, 1 urge prompt action to-day, to-morrow, and every day until the work has been completed. Let no obstacle stand in the way now, no matter what it may be. You will save your people from poverty and {]■(■<■ principle- from a more desperate combat than they have vet witnessed. Ridicule may be used in this chamber, calumny may prevail through the country, and murder may be a common occurrence South to those who stand firmly thus and who advocate such measures. Let it be soj for greater will be the crowning glory of those who are not found wanting in the day of victory. Let as, then, pre-- to the vote; one glorious Step taken, then we may take other- in the same direction." "The objection," -aid Mr. Buckalew, " which 1 have to a la] NEGRO SUFFRAGE. 495 extension of suffrage in this country, whether by Federal or State power, is this: that thereby yon will corrupt and degrade elec- tions, and probably lead to their complete abrogation hereafter. By pouring into the ballot-boxes of the country a large mass of ignorant votes, and votes subjected to pecuniary or social in- fluence, you will corrupt and degrade your elections and lay the foundation for their ultimate destruction." "After giving some considerable reflection to the subject of suffrage," said Mr. Doolittle, "I have arrived at the conclusion that the true base or foundation upon which to rest suffrage in any republican community is upon the family, the head of the family ; because in civilized society the family is the unit, not the individual." Mr. Pomeroy was in favor of the bill without the proposed amendment. " I do not want to weigh it down," said he, "with any thing else. There are other measures that I would be glad to support in their proper place and time ; but this is a great measure of itself. Since I have been a member of the Senate, there was a law in this District authorizing the selling of these people. To have traveled in six years from the auction-block to the ballot with these people is an immense stride, and if we can carry this measure alone, of itself, we should be contented for the present." The vote being taken on Mr. Cowan's amendment conferring the elective franchise upon women, the result was yeas, nine ; nays, thirty-seven. The following are the names of those who voted in the affirmative : .Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Buckalew, Cowan, Foster, Xesmith, Patterson, Riddle, and "Wade. Mr. Dixon then moved to amend the bill by adding a proviso : "That no person who has not heretofore voted in this District shall be permitted to vote unless he shall be able, at the time of offering to vote, to read and also write his own name." "I would deny to no man," said Mr. Dixon, "the right of voting solely on account of his color; but I doubt the propriety of permitting any man to vote, whatever his race or color, who lias not at least that proof of intelligence which the ability to read and write furnishes." 496 THE THIBTT-NINTH CONGRE& ••What is tin test?" asked Mr. Saulsbury. "A person who can read and write. I- it his name, or only read and write?" " I [is nan id one. •• Read and write his name!" continued Mr. Saulsbury. " A wonderful amount of education to qualify a man for the discharge the high i nd trusl of voting ! Great knowledge of the nment under which we live does this impart to ! " re really an intelligence qualification," said Mr. I n, •' 1 do not know what I might say : but of the fact that ability of a man merely to write his own name and read it, is intelligence, I am not informed. To write a man'.- name is ■ iply a mechanical operation. It may be taught to any hotly, even people of the most limited capacity, in twenty minute-; and to read il afterward certainly would not be very difficult." "I understand the amendment to include," said Mr. Willey, "the qualification of reading generally, and also of writing his name; two tests, one the reading generally, and the other the writing his own name." " Where is it- precision?" asked Mr. Cowan; "where is it to end. and who -hall determine it- limits? I will put the case of a board belonging to the dominant party, and suppose they have the statute amended by my honorable friend from Connecticut ore them, and a colored man comes forward and proposes to vote. They put to him the question, 'Can you write your mime and read?' ' Oh, yes.' 'Well, let n< see you try it.' He then write- his name and he reads it, and he is admitted it' he i- un- derstood to hel.MiL; to that party. But suppi - has recently happened, that this dark man should come to the conclusion to vote on the other side, and it were known that he meant to vote .,u the other side, what kind of a chance would he have? Then the man of the dominant party, who desires to carry the election, -. • Yon shall not only write your name and read it. but you musl read generally. I have read the senatorial debates upon this question, and the honorable Senator from West Virginia, who originated this amendment, was of opinion that a man should read generally. Now, sir, re id generally, if you plea-..' ' Well, 5 says he, ' what shall I read?' Read a section of the Novum Or- mosi difficult and abstruse thing, or a few sections from < Okie's Ph; NEGRO SUFFRAGE. 497 On the 13th of December, the last day of the discussion, Mr. Anthony occupied the chair during a portion of the session, and Mr. Foster look the floor in favor of the amendment proposed by his colleague. "The honorable Senator from Pennsylvania," said ho, "from the manner in which he treats this subject, I should think, was now fresh from his reading of ' Much A-do about Nothing/ and was quoting Mr. Justice Dogberry, who said, 'To be a well-favored man is the gift of fortune, but to read and write comes bv nature." The Senator from Pennsylvania and others seem inclined to say, 'Away with writing and reading till there is nv^\ of such vanity.' I believe thai the idea of admit- ting men to the elective franchise who can neither read nor write i- going backward and downward. "Who are the men who come forward to deposit their ballots in the ballot-boxes '.' They are the people of this country, to whom all questions must ultimately go for examination and correction. They correct the mistakes which we make, and which Congress makes, and which the Supreme Court makes. The electors at the ballot-boxes are the grand court of errors for the country. Xow. sir, these Senators propose to allow men who can not read and write to correct our mistakes, to become members of this high court of errors. "The honorable Senator from Massachusetts says he wants to put the ballot into the hands of the black man for his protection. If he can not read the ballot, what kind of protection is it to him?' A written or printed slip of paper is put into the hands of a man. black or white, and if he can not read it. what is it to hi: What does he know about if.' What can he do with if? How can he protect himself by it? As well might the honorable Sen- ator from Massachusetts put in the hands of a child who knew nothing of firearms a loaded pistol, with which to protect himself against his enemies. The child would be much more likely to endanger himself and his friends by the pistol than to protect himself. A perfectly ignorant man who can not read his ballot is much more likely to use it to his own detriment, and to the detriment of the country, than he is to use it for the benefit of either." "The argument in favor of making the right to vote universal," said Mr. Frelinghuysen, in making a second speech upon the ques- tion, "is that the ballot itself is a great education; that bv its 32 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. encouraging the citizen, by it- inspiring him, it adds dignity to iharacter, and makes him strive to acquire learning. Secondly, that if the voting depended <>n learning, no inducement is extended to communities unfavorable to the right of voting in the colored man to give liiin the opportunity t<> learn; they would rather embarrass him, to prevent his making the acquisition, unless they were in favor of his voting : while it' voting i- universal, com- munities, for their own security, for their own protection, will be driven to establish common schools, so that the voter shall become intelligent." Pursuing a similar line of thought, Mr. Wilson said: "Allow the black men to vote without this qualification and they will land education, the school-houses will rise, school-teachers will be employed, these people will attend the schools, and the cause nt' education will In- carried forward in tin- District with more rapidity than at any other period in its history. Give the negro the right of suffrage, and before a year passes round, you will see these men, who voted that they should not have the right i<> vote, running after them, and inquiring alter the health of their wives and children. I do not think the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Davis] will be examining their pelvis or shins, <>r making speeches about the formation of their lips, or the angle of their foreheads on the floor of the Senate. You will then see the De- mocracy, with the keen -cent that always distinguishes that party, on the hunt alter the votes of these black men. [laughter;] and if they treat them better than the Republicans do, they will probably gel their votes, and 1 hope they will. •• And it will he just so down in these rebel State-. Give the negroes of Virginia the right to vote, and y>n will find ^ ise and Letcher and the whole tribe of the secessionists undertaking prove that from the landing at Jamestown in l'*>-<> the first fam- ilies of the Old Dominion have always been the champions and the special friends of the negroes of Old Virginia, and that there i- a great deal of kindred between them, [laughter;] that they are relations, brethren; that the same red blood courses in the vein.- «»f many of them. They will establish all these thin.-, per- haps by affidavits. | Laughter.] And 1 say to you, sir, they will have a good opportunity to get a good many of their vol •-. tin - in these respects they have the advantage of us poor Republicans." Of the pending amendment, Mr. llen.lri.k- -aid: "1 propose NEGRO SUFFR IGE. 409 to vote for it, not because 1 am in favor, as a general propo- sition, of an intelligence qualification for the right to vote, but I icause in this particular instance, I think it to be proper to prescribe it.'' "I shall vote,'' said Mr. Lane, "to enfranchise the colored residents of this District because I believe it is right, just, and proper; because I believe it is in accordance with those two grand central truths around which cluster every hope for redeemed hu- manity, the common fatherhood of God above us and the brother- hood of universal mankind." ••The hill for Impartial Suffrage in the District of Columbia," said Mr. Sumner, "concerns directly some twenty thousand col- ored persons, whom it will lift to the adamantine platform of equal rights. If it were regarded simply in its bearings on the District it would he difficult to exaggerate its value; but when it is regarded as an example to the whole country under the sanc- tion of Congress, its value is infinite. It is in the latter character that it becomes a pillar of fire to illumine the footsteps of millions. What we do here will be done in the disorganized States. There- fore, we must be careful that what we do here is best for the dis- organized Stat'-. " When I am asked to open the suffrage to women, or when I am asked to establish an educational standard, I can not on the present bill simply because the controlling necessity under which we act will not allow it. By a singular Providence we are now con-trained to this measure of enfranchisement for the sake of peace, security, and reconciliation, so that loyal persons, white or black, may he protected and that the Republic may live. Here in the District of Columbia we begin the real work of reconstruc- tion by which the Union will be consolidated forever." The question was taken upon Mr. Dixon'- amendment, which was lost; eleven voting for, and thirty-four against the proposi- tion. The vote was then taken upon the bill to regulate the •tive franchise in the District of Columbia. It passed the Senate, thirty-two voting in the affirmative, and thirteen in the negative. On the following day, December 14th, the bill came before the House of Representatives and passed without discussion; one hundred and eighteen voting in the affirmative, and forty-six in the negative. 500 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS 7th of January, the President returned the bill I Senati »ith his objections. The Veto Message was immediately read '■ - eretary of the Senate. The President's first objection to the bill was that it was □ in accordance with the wishes of the people to whom it was to apply, they having "solemnly ami with such unanimity" pro- it. It seemed to the President that Congress sustained a relation to the inhabitants of tli* - District of Columbia analogous to that <>t';i legislature t<> the people of a State, ami "should have a like i. ;• i for th<' will and interests of it- inhabitants." Without actually bringing the charge of unconstitutionality against this measure, the President declared "that Congress i- bound to observe the letter ami spirit of the ( institution, a- well in the enactment of local law- for the Seat of Government, a- in legislation common to the entire Union." ■ The Civil Rights Bill having become a law, it was. in opinion of the President, a sufficient protection for the negro. •• h can not l.e urged," said he. "that the proposed extension of suffrage in the District of Columbia is necessary to enable persona of color to protect either their interests or their righl The President argued that tin- negroes were unfitted for the exercist of the elective franchise, ami "can not be expected cor- rectly to comprehend the duties and responsibilities which pertain to suffrage. It follow-, therefore, that in admitting to the ballot- bos a new class of voters not qualified for the - of the elective franchise, we weaken our system of government instead of adding to it- strength ami durability. It may !>e safely as- sumed that m» political truth i- better established than that such indiscriminate and all-embracing extension of popular -utTr. inu-t . ml at la-t in it- destruction." The President occupied a considerable portion of hi- Mess with a warning to the people against the dangers oftheal.n-e.pt' legislative power. He quoted from Judge Story that the legis- lative I. ranch may absorb all the power- of the government. lie quoted also the language of Mr. Jefferson that one hundred and enty tyrants are more dangerous than one tyrant. The statements of the President in opposition to the hill w characterized by Mr. Sherman a- "but a r of the arguments NEGRO SUFFRAGE. 501 already adduced in the Senate," hence but little efforl was made by the friends of the measure to reply. Mr. Sherman, in noticing the President's statements in regard to the danger of invasions by Congress of the just powers of the executive and judicial departments, said, "I do not think that there is any occasion tor >ur]\ a warning, because I am not aware that in this hill Congress has ever assumed any doubtful power. The power of Congress over this District is without limit, and, therefore, in prescribing who shall vote for mayor mid city coun- cil of this city it can not he claimed that we usurp power or exer- cise a doubtful power. "There can be but little danger from Congress; for our acts are but the reflection of the will of the people. The recent acts of Congress at the last session, those act- upon which the Presi- dent and Congress separated, were submitted to the people, and they decided in favor of Congress. Unless, therefore, there i- an inherent danger from a republican government, resting solely upon the will of the people, there is no occasion for the warning of the President. Unless the judgment of one man is better than the combined judgment of a great majority, he should have 1 their decision, and not continue a controversy in which our common constituency have decided that he was wrong." The last speech, before taking the vote, was made by Mr. Doo- little. "Men speak," said he, " of universal negro suffrage as having been spoken in favor of in the late election. There is not a State in this Union, outside of Xew England, which would vote in favor of universal negro suffrage. When gentlemen tell me that the people of the whole North, by any thing that transpired in the late election, have decided in favor of universal, un- qualified negro suffrage, they assume that ti>r which there is no foundation whatever." The question being taken whether the bill should pass over the President's veto, the Senate decided in the affirmative by a vote of twenty-nine yeas to ten nays. The next day, January 8th, the bill was passed over the veto by the House of Representatives, without debate, by a vote of one hundred and thirteen yea- to thirty-eight nays. The Speaker then declared that notwithstanding the objections of the President he United State-, the act to regulate the elective franchise in the District of Columbia had become a law. THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGEE EAPTEE XXII. J in: MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION ACT. .v Mr. Stevens — "Piratical Governj R NKED — The Military Featuri I ed — Mr. Schopield's Doc— The ( 'my Bope of Mr. His shersation Concerning the jmittee — Censure of a Member — A Military Bill Reported— V Predicted— The "Blaine . ent" — Bill P ss - the Hoi se— In the - vn . ; — Proposition to Amend — Mr McDougall i 1 Liberty <>l> - bch— Mr. Doolittle Pleads for the Life of the Republic- Sherman's Amendment — Passage in the Senate — Discussion ind n ■•- icurrence in the House — The Senate [Jnyieldini — Qualified ; CURRENCE OF Till: HOUSE— The VETO — "THE PuNERAL 01 I NATION*'— ^ The Act — Supplementary Legislation. fNOON after the passage of the bill extending the elective l^ franchise in the District of Columbia, G occu- pied in devising and discussing a practical and efficient measure for the reconstruction of the rebel States. The germ of the great " Act for tin- more efficient government of the rebel States" i- ti> be found in the previous session ■ >!' Congress in ;i proposition made by Mr. Stevens on the 28th <»!' May "to enable thf States lately in rebellion to regain their privileges in the I ■ ion." The Constitutional Amendment had been eliminated in the Senate of features which Mr. Steven- regarded a- of great im- portance. There was an indisposition on the part of the House to declaring by an acl of Congress that the reb I States should he restored on the sole condition of their accepting ami ratifying thi Constitutional Amendment. The hill proposed by Mr. Stevens was designed by it- author a- a plan of restoration t<> take the place of the proposition which accompauied the Constitutional endment. This hill rec ignized the •'■ ft do State governments at the South a- valid "for municipal purposes." It required the President to issue a proclamation within six months calling MIL I T. 1 R 1 * R ;■:< 'ONSTRUt 'T/o.Y . I CT. & 03 conventions to form legitimate State constitutions, which should be ratified by the people. All male citizens above twenty-one years <>(' age should be voters, and should be eligible to mem- bership in these constitutional conventions. All pet-sons who held office under the "government called the Confederate States of America/' or swore allegiance thereto, were declared to have forfeited their citizenship, and were required to be naturalized as foreigners before being allowed to vote. All citizens should he placed upon an equal footing in the reorganized States. On the 28th of July, the last day n\' the session, Mr. Stevens brought this bill to the notice of the House, without demanding any action upon it. He made a solemn and affecting appeal to the House, and insisted upon it as the great duty of Congress to give all loyal men, white and black, the means of self-protection. "In this, perhaps my final action," said he. "on this great ques- tion, upon careful review, I can see nothing in my political course, especially in regard to human freedom, which 1 could wish to have expurged or changed." On the 19th of December, 1866, a few days after the reassem- bling of Congress for the second session, Mr. Stevens called up his hill for the purpose of amending it and putting it in proper shape for the consideration of Congress after the hollidays. On the 3d of January, 18(37, Mr. Stevens addressed the IL in favor of his plan of reconstruction. "This hill.'' said he. " i- designed to enable loyal men, so far as E could discriminate them in these States, to form governments which shall be in loyal hands, and may protect them from outrages." As an amendment to this hill, Mr. Ashley, chairman of the Committee on Territories, offered a substitute which was in- tended to establish provisional governments in the rebel State-. Mr. Pike brought in review before the House three modes of dealing with the rebel States which had been proposed for the consideration and decisiou of Congress. The firs! was the immediate admission of the States into a full participation in the Government, treating them as if they had never been in rebellion. The second was "the let-alone policy, which would merely refuse them representation until they had adopted the constitutional amendments." The third mode was "the imme- diate action by Congress in superseding tin' governments of those State- set up by the President in 1865, and establishing 504 THE THIRTY-XINTR COXGRESS. in their plao rnments founded upon loyalty and universal suffrage. The policy last mentioned was ad 1 by Mr. Pike. •■ h has got to be time for action," said he, "if we arc to fulfill the reasonable expectations of the country during the life of this < "ongn --." On the Tih of January Mr. Stevens proposed to amend his bill by inserting a provision that no person should be disfran- chised as a punishment for any crime other than insurrection or treason. II.' gave as a reason for proposing this amendment that in North Carolina, and other States where punishment at the whipping-post deprives the person of the right to vote, they were every day whipping negroes for trivial offenses. Be had heard of one county where the authorities had whipped every adult negro they knew of. On the 8th of January a speech was made by Mr. Broomall advocating the passage of the bill before the Bouse. "Can the gro in the South preserve his civil rights without political ones-.'*' he asked. "Let the convention riot of New Orleans answer; let the terrible three days in Memphis answer. In the latter city three hundred negroes, who had periled their lives in the service of their country, and still wore its uniform, were compelled to look on while the officers of the law. elected by white men. set their dwellings in (lames and tired upon their wives and children as they escaped from the doors and window-. Their churches and school-houses were burned because they were their churches and school-houses. Yet no arrest, no conviction, no punishment await- the perpetrators of these tlc■" hands voluntarily recognized as valid for municipal purp< until duly altered. He will have gratuitously become a copart- ner in the guilt which hitherto has rested upon the souls of Andrew Johnson and his Northern and Southern satellites, but which thenceforth will rest on his soul also until he can contrive duly to alter these governments. And so it will happen that the great Union party to which he belongs, and to which 1 belong, will become implicated, for how long a time God only knows, in this unspeakable iniquity which daily and hourly cries to Heaven from every rood of rebel soil for vengeance on these monsters." Air. Bingham moved to refer the two bills — that of Mr. Stevens and that of Mr. Ashley— to the Committee on Recon- struction. He opposed these bills as "a substantial denial of the right of the great people who saved this republic by arms to save it by fundamental law." lie advocated the propriety of making the proposed Constitutional Amendment the basis of reconstruction. It had already received the ratification of the Legislatures representing not less than twelve millions of the people of this nation. The fact that all the rebel States which had considered the amendment in their Legislatures had rejected it did not invalidate this mode of reconstruction. "Those in- surrectionary States," said he, "have no power whatever as State- of this Union, and can not lawfully restrain, for a single moment, that great body of freemen who cover this continent from ocean to ocean, now organized States of the Union and represented here, in their fixed purpose and undoubted legal right to incorporate the amendment into the Constitution of the United States." Mr. Bingham maintained that Congress has the power, with- out restriction by the Executive or the Supreme Court, to "pro- pose amendments to the Constitutions, and to decide finally the question of the ratification thereof, as well as to legislate for the nation."' "I look upon both these bills," said Mr. Bingham, "as a manifest departure from the spirit and intent of our Con- stitutional Amendment. I look upon it as an attempt to take away from the people of the State- lately in rebellion that pro- tection which you have attempted to secure to them by your Constitutional Amendment." Mr. Dawson, in a speech of an hour'- duration, maintained 50 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGEES the doctrine, which he announced a- that which had given shape to presidential policy, that the attempt at secession having be< o suppressed by the physical power of the Government, th whose authority was usurped by the parties to the movement, have never, at any time, been out of the Union; and that hav- ing once expressed their acquiescence in the result of the con and renewed their allegiance to the Union, they are, at the same time, restored to all the rights and duties of the adhering Stat On the other hand, the policy of Congress, in the opinion of Mr. Dawson, was "a shameless outrage upon justice and every conservative principle," — a "usurpation of Federal powers and a violation of State rights/' Mr. Maynard gave expression to his opinions by asking the significant question, 4i Whether the men who went into the re- bellion did not by connecting themselves "with a foreign govern- . b) every act of which they were capable, denude themselves of their citizenship — whether they are not to be held and taken by this Government now as men denuded of their citizenship, having no rights as citizens except such as the legislative power of this Governmenl may choose to confer upon them'.' In othei word-, is not the question on our part one of enfranchisement, not of disfranchisement '.' " On the 17th of January, Mr. Baker addressed the House in favor of referring the pending bill to the Committee on Recon- struction, lie was opposed to the use of the term "Govern- ," without qualification or restriction, as applied to the lately revolted States, lie opposed the second section, as causing the d, facto governments to become valid for municipal purposes long before the scheme of reconstruction contemplated by the bill uated. "' I recognize them in ad van . id lie, "would be to incur the clanger of further embarrassing the whole subject !>y the il logic »f our own illogical procedure." At this stage Mr. Stevens arose and modified his substitute by withdrawing the second section, which contained the provision I to by Mr. Baker as well as by his "ardent friend" Mr. Paine. Mr. Baker objected to that feature of the bill which pro- vided thai none should be deprived of the right to vote : punishment for any crime save insurrection or treason. " Che penitentiaries of thesi ." said he, "might disgorge their in- mate- upon the polls under the operation of this bill." MIL I T. IRY R ECO. \ 'S 77/ UCTIOK A CT. 507 Mr. Grinnell was opposed to sending the question to the Com- mittee on Reconstruction. He did not think it the mosl modest proposition in the world for Mr. Bingham to urge the reference to his committee of a great question which the House generally desired to consider. " Let us have no delay," said he, "no re- commitment, rather the earliest action upon this bill, as the requirement of the people who have saved the country, what the suffering implore, what justice demands, and what I believe; God will approve." " It is to my mind most clear," .said Mr. Donnelly, in a speech upon the pending question, "that slavery having ceased to exist, the slaves became citizens; being citizens they are a part of the people, and being a part of the people no organization deserves a moment's consideration at our hands which attempts to ignore them." Of the Southern States as under rebel rule, Mr. Donnelly re- marked : "The whites are to make the laws, execute the laws, interpret the laws, and write the history of their own deeds ; but below them, under them, there is to be a vast population — a ma- jority of the whole people — seething and writhing in a condition of suffering, darkness, and wretchedness unparalleled in the world. And this is to be an American State! This is to he a component part of the great, humane, Christian republic of the world." " It i< hard," said Mr. Eldridge, in a speech against the bill, "sad to stand silently by and see the republic overthrown. It is indeed appalling to those accustomed from early childhood to ivv< re and love the Constitution, to feel that it is in the keeping of those having the power and determination to destroy it. With the passage of this bill must die every hope and vestige of the government of the Constitution. It is indeed the final breaking up and dissolution of the union of the States by the usurpation and revolutionary act of Congress." "Your work of restoration," said Mr. Warner, "will never commence until the Congress of the United State- assumes to be one of the departments of the General Government. It will never commence until you have declared, in the language of the Supreme Court, that the Executive, a- commander-in-chief of the army and navy, 'can not exercise a civil function.' "In less than two brief year- of office," -aid Mr. Warner, 608 THE THIRTY-NINTB CONGRESS. speaking of the President, "he has exercised more questionable pow - unci more doubtful constitutional functions, obliter- ated more constitutional barriers, and interposed more corrupt schemes to the expression of the popular sentiment or will of the people than all other Executives since the exisl ' eminent." Mr. Spalding feared that the bill, should it become a law, would be found defective in uot affording any protection to that loyal class of the inhabitants of those communities upon whom the elective franchise was conferred. "These colored men," said he, "who arc now recognized by the Government as possessing the rights of freemen, are to be in jeopardy of being shot down like so many dogs when they attempt to visit the polls." He then offered an amendment, which was accepted by Mr. Stevens, by which a section was added to the bill suspending the writ of habeas corpus in the ten rebel Mate-, and placing them under martial law until they should be admitted to representation in Congress under the provisions of the bill. In this - ion thus introduced may be seen the origin of that feature which, in an enlarged and extended form, gave character to the importaut measure ultimately adopted by Congress, which i- popularly known as the " Military Reconstruction Bill." The discussion was continued by Mr. Koontz. ' It i- a solemn, imperative duty." .-aid he, "that this nation owes I colored people to protect them against their own ami the nati It would be a burning, lasting disgrace to the nation were it to hand them over to their enemies. 1 know of no way in which this protection can he better given than by exteuding to them the elective franchise. Place the ballot in the hand- <>\ the black man and you give him that which insures him respecl a- well as proteel i' m." Mr. Schofield maintained that the ratification of the < on-titu- tional Amendment by three-fourths of the loyal S was all that w. ry. "Twenty-three of the twenty-six States elected Legislatures instructed to adopt it. Very soon these tw.nty-three State-, having a population in I860 of twenty-one million live hundred thousand, and no: less than twenty-seven million- now, will -end to a perfidious S ry the official evi- dence of the peopl,'- will. Delaware, Maryland, ami Kentucky alone give a negative answer. Who, then, stands in the way? mil i r. iey n ::<■ u i ^ 's tr i '■ ' n ok A ct. 5 no One old man who is charged by law with the duty of proclaim- ing the adoption of the amendment, bur who has determined to incorporate into the Union the debris of the late Confederacy — he -lands in the way." " The Secretary is clever in work of this kind. An English nobleman was at one time exhibiting his kennel to an American friend, and passing by many of his showiest bloods, they came upon one that seemed nearly used up. ' This,' said the nobleman, 'is the most valuable animal in the pack, although he is old, lame, blind, and drat".' 'Mow is that?' inquired the visitor. The nobleman explained: 'His education was good, to begin with, and his wonderful sense of smell is still unimpaired. We only take him out to catch the scent, and put the puppies on the track, and then return him to the kennel. ' Do not suppose that 1 intend any comparison between the Secretary of State and that veteran hunter. Such a comparison would be neither dignified nor truthful, because the Englishman went on to say, '! have owned that doe- for thirteen years, and, hard as he look-, he never hit the hand that fed him nor barked on a false trail.'" The laughter and applause which followed, were cheeked by the Speaker's gavel, which Mr. Schofield mistook for a notice to quit. "Has my time expired?" asked he. "It has not," re- plied the Speaker. "The Chair called you to order." said Mr. Stevens, in his seat, "for doing injustice to the dog." Mr. Ward, who next addressed the House, presented a novel theory of the rebel war. "The people of the South," said he, "did not make war upon our republican form of government, nor seek to destroy it ; they only soughl to make two republics out of one. They are now, and have keen all the time, as much attached to our system of \'rw republican government as those who abuse them for disloyalty." Mr. Ward presented his view of the state of things which would result from the passage of the pending bill. " These negro judges," said he, "will -it and hold this election backed by the United States army. That i- rather an elevated position for the new-made freed ma n ; the habeas corpus suspended, martial law proclaimed, the army at the back of the negro conducting an elec- tion to reconstruct States." Mr. lMant- addressed the House in favor of the pending bill. Of the reception given by the rebels to the proposed constitutional 510 THE THIRTY-WINTR CONGRESS. amendment, he said: "They have nol only refused to accept the more than generous terms proposed, but have- rejected them with contumely, and with the haughty and insulting bravado of sumi I n:\ demand that the nation shall submit to such terms as they shall dictate." Mr. -Miller, while advocating the pending measure, favored its reference to the Committee on Reconstruction. He a a de- tailed accounl of the Constitutional Amendment, and it- prog toward ratification among the Legislatures. He showed that the progress of reconstruction was delayed through fault of the v. themselves. " It is not the desire of the great Republican party," said he, "to retard the restoration of those ten State- to full polit- ical rights, but on the contrary they are anxious for a speedy ad- justment, in order to secure adequate protection to all class - and conditions of men residing therein, and at the same time afford ample security to the United State- Government against any future refractory course that might be pursued on the part of those Stab On the 21s1 of January the discussion was resumed by Mr. Kerr in a speech against the bill. He quoted extensively from judicial decisions and opinions to show that the rebel States wire -•ill entitled to their original rights in the Union. " The undis- guised and most unrighteous purpose of all this kind of legisla- tion/' said he, " is to usurp powers over those States that can Bud no warrant except in the fierce will of the dominant party in this Congress. It is alike at war with every principle of good and free government, and with the highest dictates of humanity and national fraternity." Mr. Higby was in favor of the pending bill, and opposed its reference to the Committee on Reconstruction. He preferred that ii should be retained in the House, when' it could be changed, matured, and finally passed. He contended that the rebel States should not come into the Union under any milder con- ditions than those imposed upon Territories recently pass< I upon in Congress. " Impartial suffrage," -aid he, " i- required of< of those Territories as a condition precedent to their becoming State-; and >hall Smith Carolina, upon this basis of reconstruc- tion, become a part of this Union upon different terms and principl - entirely from those implied by the votes we have just given '.' '* MI LIT. iR Y R EC '0, \ 'S TR I T CTIO. \ ' ACT 511 Mr. Trimble denounced the pending legislation in violent terms. "By this act/ 5 said he, "you dissolve their connection with the Government of the United States, blot them out of ex- istence as freemen, and degrade them to the condition of negro commonwealths. We have this monstrous proposition: to de- clare martial law in ten State.- of this Union; and in making this declaration, we, in my judgment, step upon the mangled ruins of the Constitution; for the Constitution plainly gives this power neither to the executive nor the legislative department of the Government." Mr. Dodge, although a Republican, and in favor of" protecting the best interests of the colored man," could not vote for either of the propositions before the House. "The result of the pas- sage of this bill," said he, " if it shall become operative, will be to disfranchise nearly the entire white population of the Southern States, and at the same time enfranchise the colored people and give them the virtual control in the proposed organization of the new State governments." Mr. Dodge was particularly opposed to the military feature proposed by Mr. Spalding. " This is not likely," said he, " in the nature of things, to bring about an early reorganization of the South. The commercial, the manufacturing, and the agricul- tural interests of this country, as they look at this matter, will see in it a continuance of taxation necessary to support this mili- tary array sent to these ten States." "This bill, if executed," said Mr. Hise, in the course of a speech against the measure, "will in effect establish corrupt and despotic local governments for all those States, and place in all the offices the most ignorant, degraded, and corrupt portion of their population, who would rule and ruin without honesty or skill the actual property-holders and native inhabitants, making insecure lite, liberty, and property, and still holding those States in their Federal relations subject to the most rapacious, fierce, and unrelenting despotism that ever existed, that of a vindictive and hostile party majority of a Congress in which they have no voice or representation, and by which irresponsible majority they would be mercilessly oppressed for that very reason ; and this will be continued, I fear, until the country shall again be precipitafc 1 into civil war." Since the "beneficent conservative power" of the President was 512 THE THIRTY-NINTR C overcome by two-thirds of C --. Mr. Hise could s th a ion in but one direction. "Our only hope," said lie, "of ition of a free government is in the judicial department of the government, and in the decisions of tin.' Suprem pronouncing your acts unconstitutional and void." Mr. Raymond preferred the Constitutional Amendm basi.« of reconstruction, and blamed the party in power for aban- doning thai . '• Last year," said he, "that man was un is party obligations who did not stand by it: this year the man is declared to be faithless to his party who these Mil-. I would vote to send them t" thai commitl - sending them t.. their tomb." "There i- no difficulty," responded .Mr. Conkling, "in having prompt consideration of any thing which may be to tic- committee. Ii was created originally solely t<> deal with this subject, h was, at first, broken into tour sub-committees, thai the work of gathering evidence might be more advantageously and speedily carried on. It became one committee, usually working together, only during a few weeks immediately preced- ing tin- bringing forward <>l' it- ultimate propositions. It would not li :■ decorous for me to praise the committee or the work it did, but I may say with propriety that it' it ever was a good committee, it' it ever should have been created and composed as it was. it is a good committee now — better than it ever was before; better, because more familiar with this subject, because it- mem- bers, having now become acquainted with cadi other's views, ami having become accustomed to aci with each other, and hav- ing studied the whole subject committed to them, can proceed with much more hope of good results than ever before. Saving a right to report at any time, and being led, on the part of this House, by the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens], 1 see no reason why it can not consider and digest wisely and promptly whatever may be referred to it and make report." "We are now considering a report from that very conunittei said Mr. Stevens. "That committee made a report, and 1 have offered a substitute for the hill which they reported. It' the gentleman think- the report of that committee i- best, then let him vote against my substitute. But why -end this subject hack again to the committee? The gentleman knows as well as I do how many different opinion- there arc in that committee; some of us believe in one thing, and some of us in another: some of us are very critical, and some of us are not. The idea that we can consider any thing in that committee, constituted as it is, in less than a fortnight, it seems to me is wholly out of the question; and as we have only about some twenty working day- in which to mature thi< hill in both branches of < tongress, it' we -end this subject to that committee and let it take it< time to consider it, and then have it reported here and considered again, 1 certainly need not say to gentlemen that that would he an end of the matter, at least for this - ssion." Ml LIT. Lin- RECONSTRUCTION ACT 515 " The gentleman from Pennsylvania concurred in thai report," replied Mr. Conkling. "He had his full -hare in molding it and making it precisely what it was. Be supported it then ; now he offers a substitute for it. Why? Because the time which has elapsed since then, and the events which have tran- spired, have modified, he thinks, the exigencies of the case. Is not that as applicable to the judgment of the committee as to his own".' Is it not proper that it should have the opportunity of acting for once in the light of all the facts and circumstances as they are to day?" "Two or three bills on this subject. "* said Mr. Stevens, "have been referred during this session to that committee. Why has not the committee acted on them?" "If I were the chairman of the committee on the part of this House," replied Mr. Conkling, I should be able to answer that question, because then I could tell why I had not called the committee together. But as I am only a subordinate member of the committee, whose business it is to come when I am called, and never to call others, I am entirely unable to give the infor- mation for which the gentleman inquires." "If I could have any assurance," said Mr. Ashley, "that this committee would be able to report promptly a bill upon which this House could probably agree, I would not hesitate a single moment to vote for the reference of this measure to that com- mittee; but, believing that they will be unable to agree, I -hall vote against a recommitment." In describing the character of the opposition arrayed against the Congressional plan of reconstruction. Mr. Ashley used the following emphatic language: "Why, sir. the assumption, the brazen-faced assumption of men who during the entire war were in open or secret alliance with the rebels, coming here now and joining hand- with the apostate at the other end of the avenue, who is the leader, the recognized leader of a counter- revolution — a negative rebellion, as I said awhile ago — passes comprehension." . "If intended to apply to us," said Mr. Winfield, speaking for the Democratic members, "it is a base and unfounded slander.'* ••So far as I am concerned, it is a base lie." 3a id Mr. Hunter. For using these words, "condemned by gentlemen every-where, as well as by parliamentary law," the House passed a vote of censure 516 THE THIRTY-NINTH. CONGRESS. on Mr. Hunti r, and he was required to go forward and receive a public reprimand from the Speaker. < )n the 28th of January, the House having resumed the con- sideration of the bill to restore to the rebel States their full politi- cal rights, Mr. Julian expressed his belief that the time had con for action, and that having the greal subject before them, t! should proceed earnestly, and with littL delay, to mature so measure which would meet the demand of the people. " Lei us toler ite no further procrastination," said he ; " and while we justly hold the President responsible for the trouble and mal-ad minis- tration which now curse the South and disturb the peace of ;. country, let us remember that the national odium already per- petually linked with the name of Andrew Johnson will be shared by us it* we fail in the greal duty which i- now brought to our door-.** Mr. Julian differed with many other- in his opinion ..l' the real wain- of the rebel State-. •• What these regions need," -aid he, "above all things, is nol an easy and quick return to their for- feited rights in the Union, but government, the strong arm of power, outstretched from the central authority here in Washings ton, making; it safe for the freedmen of the South, safe for her loyal white men. safe for emigrants from the Old World and from the Northern State- \<> go and dwell there; safe for Northern capital and labor, Northern energy and enterprise, and Northern idea- to sel up their habitation in peace, and thus found a Chris- tian civilization and a living democracy amid the ruin- of the past." "It would seem," -aid Mr. Cullom, "that the men who have been struggling so hard to destroy this country were and .-till are the instruments, however wicked, by which we are driven to give the I. lack man justice, whether we will or no. •• By the unholy persistence of rebels slavery was at last over- thrown. Their contempl of the Constitutional Amendment, now before the country, will place in the hand- of every colored man of the South the ballot." Some amendments having been engrafted upon the hill by the acquiescence of Mr. Stevens, the vote was taken on the motion to refer t,, the < "onimiitee on Reconstruction, which was agreed to — affirmative, eighty-eight; negative, sixty-five. The bill thus referred never again saw the light. In place of this, the Committee on Reconstruction instructed Mr. Stevens to Ml LIT. I R ) ' R EC '<). \ 'S TR UCTIO. V -1 CT. 5 1 7 report a military bill for the "more efficient government of the insurrectionary Stair-." This bill was reported on the ( the district; and the laws and regulations for thi rmy chilli not be affected • ipt in so far as thi QS." Mr. Stevens, having been remonstrated with by a Democratic member for exp ^ , ti- bring the question tut I will wait until thenj in order to ascertain what the people want."' On the following day, February 7th, Mr. Stevens introduced the discussion with a brief speech. "This bill provides," said lie. that "the ten disorgani - tes shall be divided into live military districts, ami that the commander of thr army shall take chat of them through hi- lieutenants a- governors, or you may rail them commandants it' you choose, not below the grade of l>ri_ diers, who -hall have the general supervision of the peace, quiet, ami the protection of the people, loyal ami disloyal, who reside within those precincts; ami that to do so he may use, as the law of nation- would authorize him to do. thr legal tribunals where- ever he may deem them competent ; but they are to be considered of no validity per st . of no intrinsic force, no force in consequence of their origin, tin- question being wholly within the power of the i tqueror, ami to remain until that conqueror -hall permanently supply tlnir place with something else. 1 will say, in brief, that i- the whole hill. It does not need much examination. < >ne night's resl after it- reading is enough to digest it." "Of all the various plan-.*' said Mr. Brand ," which have been discussed in this hall for the past two ycurs, to my mind ii seems the plainest, the most appropriate, the freest from con- stitutional objection, and the b -. calculated to accomplish the master aim- of reconsl ruction. " h begins the work of reconstruction al the right end, and employs the right tools for its oent. It begins at the MIL J T. IBT R ECO. ^ 'S TR I '< ' TIO. V ACT. 5 19 point where Gran< left off the work, at Appomattox Court-house, and it holds those revolted communities iii the grasp of war until the rebellion shall have laid down its spirit, as two years ago it formally laid down its arras." Mr. LeBlond characterized the Committee on Reconstruction as " the maelstrom committee, which swallows up every thing that is good and gives out every thing that is evil." " There is nothing left," said he, in the conclusion of his speech, "but quiet submission to your tyranny, or a resort to arms on the part of the American people to defend themselves. "I do not desire war; but as one American citizen, I do prefer Avar to cowardly submission and total destruction of the funda- mental principles of our Government. In my honest conviction, nothing but the strong arm of the American people, wielded upon the bloody battle-field, will ever restore civil liberty to the American people again." "Is it possible," said Mr. Finck, "that in this Congress we can find men bold enough and bad enough to conspire against the right of trial by jury, the great privilege of habeas corpus; men who are willing to reverse the axiom that the military should be subordinate to the civil power, and to establish the abhorred doc- trine resisted by the brave and free men of every age, that the military should be superior to the civil authority'.'" "It does not seem to me," said Mr. Pike, "that the change proposed to be made by this bill in the management of the South- ern State- i.- so violent as gentlemen on the other side would have ii- suppose. They seem to believe that now the people of those States govern themselves; but the truth is, since the suppression of the rebellion, that is, since the surrender of the rebel armies in 1865, tiie government of those State- have been virtually in the hands of the President of the United State-. "This bill does not transfer the government of those States from the people to the officers of the army, but only from the President to those officers." Mr. Farnsworth, who next addressed the House, gave numer- ous authenticated instances of outrages and murders perpetrated by rebels upon Union soldiers and citizens. " Tt is no longer a question of doubt," said he, "it can not be denied that the loyal men, ili- UnioH soldiers and the freedmen in these disorganized and disloyal Stat— are not protected. They are murdered with 520 Tin: Tiiiirrr-.vi.vrii coxgl impunity; they are despoiled !- and their property they are banished, scattered, driven from the country." Mr. Rogers denounced the pending l>ill in most emphatic lan- guage. "You will carry tin- conflict on," said In-, '•until you bring about a war that will shake this country as with the thr< of an earthquake; a war that will cause tin- whole civilized world to witness our dreadful shock ami fill nature with agony in all her parts, with which the one we have passed through i- not at all to In- compared." lie eulogized President Johnson in the hig] rms. " 1 ivernment," said he, "brought him from a poor boy i- at a man a- ever lived, and he deserves as much credit as ^ ashing- ton and will yet receive it. He will oot submit to have the citadel of liberty invaded and destroyed without using tic civil > and military powers to prevent it. He Mill maintain the Con- stitution, sir, even to the spilling of blood." Mr. Bingham proposed to amend the lull to make it accord with hi- theory by substituting the phrase "the -aid States" for the word- ••--called States." W^ also proposed some limitation the extent to which the habeas corpus should be suspended. ••When these men," said he, "shall have fulfilled their obliga- tions, and when the great people themselves shall have put. by their own rightful authority, into the fundamental law the sub- lime decree, the nation's will, that no State shall deny to any mortal man the equal protection of the law — not of th< - of South Carolina alone, but of the laws national and State, and above all, sir, of the great law. the Constitution of our own country, which is tin' supreme law of the land, from Georgia to Oreeon. and from Maine to Florida — then, sir, by assenting thereto those State- may he restored at once. To that end, sir, 1 labor and for that I -I rive." ■•1';:! ss tin population of these State-." said Mr. Lawrence, '• j- to he left to the merci!e- It lit ■ of the lvhel-. wllO employ the color of authority they exercise under illegal but d •vernments to oppress all who are loy il without furnishing them any protectiou against murder and all the wrongs that rebels can inflict on loyal men, we can not, dare not refuse to pa— this bill." Since, however, the hill did not propose any " plan of reorgan- izing State governments in the late rebel Stat — .** Mr. Lawren read amendments which he desired to introduce at the proper . )1 TL J T. IBY BECO. \ 'S TR I T CT1 0. V A CT. 2 ! time, providing thai the laws of the Districl of Columbia, "nut locally inapplicable," should he in force in the rebel territory, and that the United States courts should have jurisdiction. Mr. Bise declared this a "stupid, cruel, unwise, and unconsti- tutional measure." " If I had not been prepared," said he, "by other measures hitherto adopted and others hitherto introdu I into this House, I should not have been less startled at the intro- duction of this than if I had received the sudden intelligence that the ten States enumerated in this hill had been sunk by great convulsion of nature and submerged under an oceanic deluge." "This is not, strictly speaking, a measure of reconstruct] said Mr. Ingersoll, " but a measure looking simply to the enforce- ment of order. It seems to me clear, then, that, not only under the laws of war and under the laws of nations, but under the ex- press authority of the Constitution itself, Congress possesses the rightful authority to establish military governments, as proposed by the bill under consideration." Referring to Mr. LeBlond's anticipated war, Mr. Ingersoll said: "I desire to ask the gentleman where he is going to get his soldiers to make war upon the Government and the Congress of the United States? You will hardly find th'em in the rebel States. They have had enough of war; they have been thor- oughly whipped, and do not desire to be whipped again. You will not get them from the loyal people of the Northern or South- ern States. If you get any at all, you may drum up a few recruits from the Democratic ranks, but in the present weak and shattered condition of that party you would hardly be able to raise a very formidable army, and I tell the gentleman if the party deer in the -line ratio in the coming year as it has in the last, the whole party together would not form a respectable corps d'ari "How about the bread and butter brigade?" interposed a member. " 1 did not think of that heroic and patriotic band,*' replied Mr. Ingersoll, "but I do not apprehend much danger from that source; it would be a bloodless conflict; we would have no use either for the sword or musket ; all that would be necessary to make a conquest over them would be found in the commissary department. Order out the bread and butter ami peace would he restored." THE THIRTY-NIJfTR C0JVG1 Mr. Shanklin warned 1 1 1 • • House of the danger of establishing niilitiiry governments in the South. " You may be in the plen- itude of power to-day," he said, in conclusion, "and you may be ousted to-morrow. And 1 hope, it' you do nol cease tb - outrages upon the people of the country, such as you propose here, such as are attempting to be inflicted by your Freedmen's Bureau and your Civil Rights Bills, that the rime will not he lone before that army which the gentleman from [llinois [Mr. [ngersoll] seemed to think could not be raised — an army armed with ballots, and not with bayonet — will march to the polls and hurl the advocates of this and its kindred tneasui out of their places, and fill them with men who app more highly and justly the rights of citizens and of freemen, with statesmen whose minds can grasp our whole country and its rights and its want-, and whose hearts arc in sympathy with the noble, the brave, and the just, whether they live in the sunny South or the ice-bound regions of the North." •• 1 hail this measure," said Mr. Thayer, "as interrupting baleful calm, which, if not disturbed by a proper exercise legislative power upon this subject, may be succeeded by di.« i and collision. It furnishes at least an initial point from which we can start in the consideration and adjustment of the . t question of reconstruction. I regard this as a measure whi lavs the grasp of Congress upon this great question — a grasp which is to hold on to it until it shall be finally settled. 1 regard it as a measure which is to take that great question out i f that sea of embarrassment and sluggish inactivity in which, through the course which the President has thought proper to pursue, it now rests." "For our neglect," said Mr. Harding, of [llinois, "to exert the military power of the Government, we are responsible for the blood and suffering which disgrace this republic. Lei us go hack, then, or rather let us come up to where we wen' before, and exercise jurisdiction over the territory conquered from the i'h Is which jurisdiction the President has given up to tin r i real suff and injury of the Government and loyal | pie." " Let it be remembered all the time," said Mr. Shellabarger, " that your country has a righl to its life, and thai the powers pour Government ajiven for its preservation. Let it be M1L1 T, 1 1! J ' R ECO, YSTE UCTIOjY J CT. remembered that one portion of your republic lias fallen into a state of rebellion, and is still in a state of war against your Government, and that the powers of the Government are to be exercised for the purposes of the protection and the defense of the loyal, and the disloyal too, in that part of the republic; and that, for the purpose of thai defense, you arc authorized to sus- pend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, and to exercise such extraordinary powers as are accessary to the preservation of the great life of the nation. Let these things he remembered; and then let it also be remembered that the law-making power of the Government not only controls the President, but controls the purposes and the ends and the objects of war, and, of course, the movements of the armies that are to be employed in war. Let these things be remembered, and it seems to me that all the diffi- culties with which it is sought to surround this measure will at once disappear." "What carried our elections overwhelmingly.'" asked Mr. Hotchkiss. "It was the story of the Southern refugees told to the people of the North and the West, They told us they demanded protection. They enlisted the sympathy of Northern soldiers by telling that the very guerrillas who hung upon the skirts <>!' our army during the war were now murdering Southern soldier- who fought on the Union side, and murdering peaceful citizens, murdering black men who were our allies. We prom- ised the people if we were indorsed we would come back here and protect them, -and yet not a step has been taken." Mi'. Griswold regretted to vote against a measure proposed by those whom he believed to "have at heart the best interest of the whole country." "It seems to me," said he, "that the pro- visions of this bill will lead us into greater danger than is justified by the evils we seek to correct. It is, Mr. Speaker, a tremen- dous stride that we propose to make by this hill to subject to military control ten million people who have once been partners of this common country, and who are to be united with us in its future trials and fortunes. This bill proposes to place all the rights of life, liberty, and happiness exclusively in the control of a mere military captain. This bill contains no provisions for the establishment in the future of civil governments there; it simply provides that for an indefinite period in the future a purely military power shall have exclusive control and jurisdic- THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. tion there. Thai . another and a very serious objection to this bill." "There is a necessity," said Mr. Raymond, for some measure of protection to the people of the Southern 3. I think it is clear that life, liberty, and property are not properly guarded by law, are not safe throughout those Southern States. They are not properly protected by the courts and judicial tribunals of those States; they arc not properly protected by the civil author- ities thai arc in possession of political power in those States." the pending bill, he said: "It is a simple abnegation <>t' all attempts for the time in protect the people in the Southern - by the ordinary exercise of civil authority. It hand- over all authority in th [ ates to officers of the army of the United States, and clothes them as officers <>t" the army with complete, absolute, unrestricted power to administer the affairs of th<>~c States according t<> their sovereign will and pleasure. In my opinion there has nut occurred an emergency which justifi - resort i<> this extreme reined}-. The military force ought to follow the civil authority, and not lead it, nut take its place, m4 supersede it." " We must compel obedience to the Union," -aid Mr. Garfield, "and demand protection for its humbles zen wherever the flag floats. We must so exert the power of the nation that it shall be deemed both safe and honorable to have been loyal in the midst of treason. We must see to ii that the frightful car- nival of blood now raging in the South shall continue no lo: The time has come when we must lay the heavy hand of mili- tary authority upon these rebel communities and hold them in i.- grasp till their madness is pa Mr. Stevens having expressed a wish to have an immediate . Mr. Banks remarked: "I believe that a day or two de- 1 in a discussion of this subject of the reconstruction of the Government will bring us to a solution in which the two bouses of Congress will agree, in which the people of this country will sustain us, and in which the Presidenl of the United States will u- his suppi ■•I have nut the advantage," replied Mr. Stevens, "of the secret negotiations which the distinguished gentleman from Mas- sachusetts [Mr. Banks] has, and from which h - to expect such p .•;' cl harmony b the President and th( I MILITAR 1 ' RECONSTRUCTION . ICT. he United Stales within a few days. If I had that advan- . 1 do not know what effecl it might have upon me. Not having it. I can not, of course, act upon it." "In the remarks which I made."' said Mr. Banks, " I made no allusion to any negotiations with the President. I have no negotiations with the President of the United State-, nor do 1 know his opinions, and in the vote which 1 shall give u this question, neither the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] nor any other man has the right to assume that I accept the policy of the Executive in the smallest particular. I hope for a change of his position ; I think that it is not im] sible. At all events, I think it is something which is worth our while to try for." The previous question was moved by Mr. Stevens; but a majority refusing to second the motion, the discussion was con- tinued. Mr. Ka-son denied the existence of a right in Congress ' establish a military government over people who have been in insurrection." He proposed as a substitute for the pending measure "A bill to establish an additional article of war for the more complete suppression of the insurrection against the United States." This provided for a division of the rebel ter- ritory into military districts, as did the original bill, and au- thorized commanders to declare martial law wherever it should be necessary for the "complete suppression of violence and dis- order." Mr. Ashley moved an amendment providing for the restoration to loyal owners of property confiscated by the rebel government, and providing that military government should cease so soon as the people of the rebel States should adopt State constitutions securing to all citizens equal protection of the laws, including the right of the elective franchise, and should ratify the propi amendment to the Constitution. Mr. Raymond thought that, on account of the great diversity of opinion, the whole subject should he referred to a select com- mittee, who should be instructed to report within three or four days a bill which should "provide temporarily for the protection of rights and the preservation of the peace in the State- lately in rebellion, and also for the speedy admission of those State- (o their relations in the Union upon the basis of the Constitutional THE Til lirrr-M.VTll COXGRElt Amendment." Thus he hoped a result could 1"- reached which "would command the support of Congress and of the country, and the approval, or al least the assent, of the Executr Mr. Boutwell remarked that previous propositions having been rred i" the Committee on \( nstruction, they had upon the bill before the House with a unanimity which no other report had ever obtained, nor haf all the political power there to-day as it ever has hern since the first gun was tired upon Fort Sumter. The rebellion is alive. It is strong — -strong in the number of its votaries, strong in its social influences, strong in its political power, strong in the belief thai the executive department of this Government is in sympathy and community of purpose with them, strong in the belief that the controlling majority of the supreme judiciary of the land is with them in legal opinion, strong in the belief that the controversy in this body between impracticable zeal and incorrigible timidity will prevent any thing of importance being accomplished or any legislation matured.*' • It is," said Mr. Allison, "because of the interference of the President of the United States with the military law which ex- ists in those States that tins bill is rendered necessary. In my judgment, if we had to-day an Executive who was desirous of enforcing the laws of the United States to protect loyal men in those State.-, instead of defending the rebel clement, this bill would not be needed." Mr. Blaine submitted an amendment providing that any one of the "late so-called Confederate States" might be restored to representation ami relieved of military rule when, in addition to having accepted the Constitutional Amendment, it should have conferred the elective franchise impartially upon all male citizen- over twenty-one years of age. Mr. Blaine maintained that the people in the elections of 1866 had declared in favor of "universal, or, at least, impartial suf- frage as the basis of restoration." On the 13th of February the discussion was continued. "That the spirit of rebellion still lives," said Mr. Van Horn, of New York, "and now thrives in the South no sane man can deny; that the determination exists to make their rebellion honorable and the loyalty of the South a lasting disgrace and a permanenl badge of dishonor is equally true and can not be denied. The leaders of the rebellion, being in power in all the ten States un- reconstructed, still defy the authority of the United States to a great extent, and deny the power of the loyal millions of the country, who have saved our nation's life against their treason THE THIRTT-XLA and rebellion, to prescribe terras of settle] in- tra and deny also that they have lost any rights they had b fore the war or committed any treason against the Govern- ment." The measure before the House, as it came from the Commil on ustruction, "was not intended as a reconsti to the interpretation of Mr. Stevens. " It was in- i ided -imply as a police bill t<> protect the loyal men fr anarchy and murder, until this Congress, taking a little m time, can suit gentlemen in a l>ill for the admission of all tli ! States upon the basis of civil governmen The various amendments proposed were designed by their authors to add a plan of' reconstruction to the pending hill. ( >f these Mr. Boutwell remarked: '•Without examining into the n \\i:':i several commit' loyal nun from the South for four month.-; I had altered, and rcaltercd it, written and re- M II i T. IRT RECONSTRUCTION ACT I 29 written it four several times, and found thai it met the appro- bation of numerous societies and meetings in all the Southern ■>. It was, therefore, not altogether my fault if it was not so good a bill as might be found; but I did think that, after all, it was uncivil, unjust, indecent nol to attempt to amend it and make it better, to see whether we could do something to enable our friends in the Southern States to establish institutions according to the principles of republican government." Mr. Stevens deprecated a disposition among his friends to be hypercritical in relation to mere verbal details. "If I might presume upon my age/' said he, "without claiming any of the wisdom of Nestor, I would suggest to the young gentlemen around me that the deeds of this burning crisis, of this solemn day, of this thrilling moment, will cast their shadows far into the future and will make their impress upon the annals of our history, and that we shall appear upon the bright pages of that history just in so far as we cordially, without guile, without bick- ering, without small criticism-, lend our aid to promote the great cause of humanity and universal liberty." The question being taken on the motion to refer to the Com- mittee on the Judiciary, it was decided in the negative — yeas, 69; nays, 94. The question was then taken on the passage of the bill. It passed the House — one hundred and nine voting in the affirmative, and fifty-five in the negative. "I wish to inquire, Mr. Speaker/' said Mr. Stevens, " if it is in order for me now to say that we indorse the language of good old Laertes, that Heaven rules as yet, and tin re are gods above."" At the evening session of the Senate on the same clay, the bill "to provide for the more efficient government of the insurrec- tionary Stall's** was announced as having passed the House, and at once received its first reading. Mr. Williams gave notice of his intention to propose an amendment, but on the following day, when the Senate proceeded to consider the subject, he said that being impressed with the necessity of the passage of the bill, and fearing that any amendment might endanger if not defeat it. he had concluded not to present his amendment. Mr. Johnson said that the adoption of the amendment would make the bill much less objectionable to him. although he could not vote for it even if amended. lie then offered the amend- 34 THE THIirrV-.YI.YTIf COXGBESS. mint, which was substantially the sun-' as that proposed bj Messrs. Bingham and Blaine in the House of Representatives. Mr. Stewart regretted that the S itor from Oregon changed his mind in regard to this amendment. "The mili- tary bill without that," said he, "is an acknow '_ ent that. after two years of discussion and earnest thought, we are unable to reconstruct, and are compelled to turn the matter over to the military. It seems to me that the people of the United Stat - want and demand something more than a military government for the South." Several Senators thought Mr. Stewart was unnecessarily troubled about military governments in the South. "Are we," asked Mr. Morrill, "who have stood here for five long, bloody years, and witnessed the exercise of military power over these rebel Stat to be frightened now by a declaration of that sort? That is not the temper in which 1 find myself to-day. I have got so ac- stomed, if you please, to the exercise of this authority ••That is the trouble," said Mr. Stewart. •• That has not been our trouble that we have exercised pow ." said Mr. Morrill; "that has been the salvation of the nation. The trouble has been from the hesitation to exercise authority when authority was required." Mr. Wilson thought that the wisest course would be to p the bill just as it came from the House. W it was to be amended at all, he would propose an amendment that all citizens should "equally possess the right to pursue all lawful avocations and r ive the equal benefits of the public schools." •■1 think the amendments," said Mr. Howard, "entirely in- compatible with the scheme and provisions of the hill it-elf. ami that gentlemen will discover that incompatibility on look into it." Mr. Henderson thought that the remedy proposed by him lone before would he found the only cure for the ill- of the nation. •• 1 offered," -aid he. •• twelve month- ago, a proposition, a- a con- stitutional amendment, that was to -ive political rights t" the negroes. Some Senators -aid it was a humbug, that it was Jacob Townsend's Sarsaparilla, or some thing to that effect, that it would amount to oothing. Now, 1 will a-k what other protec- tion r.m you give to ;i Union man in the Southern Mat'- than the ballot?" MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION ACT. 531 Since the bill must be passed both Houses and go to the Pres- ident by the following Tuesday, in order to give Congress time to pass it over his veto, Mr. Williams, who had the bill in cha was desirous of having it passed upon in the Senate on the evening of the day of this discussion, February loth. Several Senators protested against this as unreasonable haste. " It is extraordinary," said Mr. Doolittle, "that a bill of this kind, * proposes to establish a military despotism over eight million people and a country larger than England. France, and Spain combined, is to be pressed to a vote in this Senate the first day it is taken up for consideration." "If the measure will not bear argument," -aid Mr. Hendricks, "then let it be passed in the dark hours of the night. I think it is becoming, when despotism is established in this free land, that the best blood that ever ran in mortal veins was shed to make tree, that that despotism shall be established when the sun does not shed its bright light upon the earth. It is a work for darkness and not for light." " He talks about establishing a despotism," said Mr. Hender- son, "and gets into a perfect fret about it. Why, sir, the South- ern States have presented nothing but a despotism for the last six years. During the rebel rule it was a despotism, the veriest despotism ever established upon earth; and since the rebel rule ceased, the President of the United States certainly has governed the Southern States without ever consulting Congress on the subject/' The Senate held an evening session for the consideration of this bill. Mr. Hendricks proposed to modify the pending amendment so as to provide for impartial rather than universal suffrage. He thought that States should be allowed to limit suffrage. Mr. Saulsbury would not vote for this amendment be- cause he was unwilling to " touch, taste, or handle the unclean thing." On the other hand. Mr. Davis could vote for it because he preferred a "little unclean thing" to "a bio- one." Mr. Hendricks finally withdrew his amendment. Mr. Doolittle Imped that the majority would seriously weigh this question because on it might depend whether the people of the South would accept the Constitutional Amendment, and ac- cept the proposition necessary to get rid of military despotism. " Make them," said Mr. Wilson. 77/ A' THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS said Mr. ! i littli . " if thai is the 1 -.1:111. to say to a j»>i»j»!<- who have been educated in the largest libertv, a people in whose vein 3 son 1»1 1 is flowing, despotism of every form, ' You mus pt this position at the point of the bayon forever live with the bayonet at your I - •; : the way to make peace?" •• I think it is statesmanship," replied Mr. Wilson, " to settle I question of reconstruction upon the solid basis of the perfect equal- ity of rights and privileges among citizens of the United Stal s. Colored men arc citizens, and they have just as much right as this race whose blood has been fighting against oppression for a thousand years, as he says, and any settlement of this civil war upon any oth basis than perfect equality of rights and privileges among citizens of the United States is not statesmanship; it is mere trifling; only keeping open questions for future controversy. N settled unless it i- settled upon the basis of jus •• 1 shall vote for this amendment," said Mr. Lane, "believing that it i- necessary to make a perfect system for the r on of the lately rebellious - "The amendment," said Mr. Johnson, "is objectionable to me only upon the ground that it denies to those States the right of coming into the Union entitled to representation until they ex- tend the suffrage, because 1 believe the right of suffrage is a matter with which the Congr ss of the United S1 - no concern." •• I know perfectly well," said Mr. Buckalew, "that a \ this amendment, although given under circumstances which do not commit me to the proposition as a final one, will be misun- derstood and perverted. It will be said throughout the country of each of those who stand in the position in which I stand, that we have departed, to some extent at least, from that position which we have hitherto maintained, and maintained ag inst all the influences of the time, againsl the pressure of circumsfc which have swept many from our side and carried them into the large and swollen camp of the majority. Sir. 1 for one am am- bitious of being known as one among that number of men who have kepi their faith, who have followed their convictions, who obeyed the dictation of duty in the worst of times, who did not bend when the storm heat hardest and strong - linsl them, MILITARY RFJ'o.YSTUlTTlo.Y ACT. 533 but kepi their honor unsullied, their faith intact, their self-respect unbroken and entire." • l Mv object is," said Mr. Henderson, when proposing to mod- ify the pending amendment, " to secure the franchise, and after that is secured, to go forward and establish civil governments in the Sunt hern Stales." Extended arguments against the measure were made by Mr. Johnson and Mr. Hendricks. At twelve o'clock the minority desired to adjourn, and the friends of the measure would have been willing to do so could an understanding have been had as to an hour on the following day when the vote would be taken. Mr. McDougall would submit to no such limitation upon free speech. "I do not expect myself," said he, "to speak at any great length, but yet if upon careful consideration I should choose to do so. or if possessing the recollections of past times and mem- ories and reasons and considerations that yet lay in my hidden memories I shall choose to talk for a longer period, I shall claim the right to do so." •■ 1 am anxious to give my views on this subject," said Mr. 1 >avis. " I do not feel able to give them at this late hour of the night : still, I believe I could hang on for three or four hours if 1 was disposed to do so, [laughter,] but I believe that to-morrow 1 should not occupy more than at the farthest two hours of the time of the Senate." Numerous amendment- were proposed, much discursive talk was indulged in, and many motions to adjourn were voted down. At length, three o'clock of Saturday morning, February Kith, having arrived, an adjournment was brought about by mean- of a very long amendment proposed by Mr. Henderson as a substi- tute for the entire bill. This opening up a new discussion, the friends of the pending bill saw the impossibility of coming to a sp ■ lv vote, and consented to an adjournment. On the reassembling of the Senate on Saturday, February 16th, Mr. Doolittle delivered a very long speech in opposition to the bill, and in vindication of his political course which had called in question by the " Radicals of Wisconsin." "I ri said he, "to plead for what 1 believe to be the life of the repub- lic, and for that spirit which gives it life. 1 stand here, als< . to answer for myself; because, foreseeing and resisting from the beginning what I knew must follow as the logical consequences 6 . THE 77///,'7T-.\7.\77/ COA of idoption i fiindamental heresies originating in Massachusetts, and of which the honorable Senator upon my _ ;,t [Mr. Sumner] is tin cate ami champion, I have be for more than eighteen months denounced in m\ bv many ■ • * of my former political, associates and friends." At the evening -(--ion of the Senate, Mr. Saulsbury and Mr. Davis delivered led speeches against the measure. " I ap- peal to you, sir/ 3 said Mr. Saulsbury; "1 .ho exercise political power in this country now. by all the memories that cluster around the glorious past : by the recollection of the noble deeds and heroic sufferings of our ancestors, for you and for in . for your posterity and for my posterity ; by all the bright realizations which might be ours in this present hour; by all the bright future and all the glories which arc in that immediate future, stop your aggressions upon the Constitution of your country." The vote having been taken on the amendment proposed by Mr. Johnson and the substitute of Mr. Henderson, they w both rejei ted. Mr. Sherman then offered an amendment in the nature of a substitute, the preamble of which declared that " No legal St governments or adequate protection for life or property now exist in the rebel State-."* It retained the military feature of the original bill, with the modification that the President, instead of the General of the army, should appoint district commanders. The most important part of the amendment un- a plan of recon- struction, which addled a new section to the i>i! ! in the following form : - .1 '. That \\ lien tin •■■■ >ple of any one of rebel States shall have formed ;i Constitution nvernment in con- formity with the Constitution of the United States in all re framed liv ;i convention of n shall have been submitted to Con- MIL ! T, IRT E ECONS TfiUCTIOJY ■ 1 <"!'. 535 gross for examination and approval, and Congress shall have appointed the same, and when said State, by a vote of its Legislature elected under said Constitution, shall have adopted the amendment to the Constitution of the United States proposed by tin' Thirty-ninth Congress, and known as arl fourteen, and when said article shall have I ome a pan of the Constitution of the United States, said State shall be declared entitled to representation in Congress, and Senator- and Representatives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking the oath prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this act shall he inoperative in said State Mr. Sherman made a brief speech in explanation of the hill. "All there is material in the hill,'' said he, " is in the first two lines of the preamble and the fifth section, in my judgment. The first two lines may lay the foundation, by adopting the proclama- tion issued first to North Carolina, that the rebellion had swept away all the civil governments in the Southern States; and the fifth section points out the mode by which the people of those State.-, in their own manner, without any limitations or restric- tions by Congress, may get back to full representation in Con- gress." After numerous propositions to amend, and speeches against the bill by Messrs. Hendricks, Cowan, Buckalew and McDou- gall, the Senate reached a vote upon the bill at six o'clock on Sunday morning. Twenty-nine voted in the affirmative, namely : Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Cattell, Chandler. Conness, Cragin, Creswell, Fogg, Frelinglmysen, Crimes, Howard. Howe. Kirkwood, Lane, Morgan, Morrill, Poland. Pomeroy, Ramsey, Ross, Sherman, Stewart. Trumbull, Van Winkle. Wade. Willey, Williams, Wilson, and Yates. Ten voted in the negative, to-wit : Messrs. Buckalew, Cowan, l>a\is. Doolittle, Hendricks, McDougall, \ - niith, Norton. Patterson, and Saulsbury. *> The Senate amended the title of the bill by substituting the word "rebel" for "insurrectionary." Thus passed in the Senate the great measure entitled "A bill to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States." On Monday, February L8th, the bill, as amended, came before the House. Mr. Stevens moved that the amendments ( »t' the Senate be non-concurred in, and that the House ask a Commit- tee of < Conference. 536 THE THIRTT-XIXTH COXGRESS. Mr. Boutwell opposed the amendment. " [f I did not be- lieve," said he, "that this bill, in the form in which it now comes to us from th - te, was _ht with great and perma- nent danger to the country, I would not attempt to resist further it - passagi ." II, • objected to the bill on the ground that it proposed to re- construct the rebel Starr governments at a;b the agency of disloyal men, and that it gave additional power to the I dent when he had failed to use the vast power which he already possessed in behalf of loyalty and justi Mr. Stokes saw in the bill the- principle of universal amnesty and universal suffrage. " I would rather have nothii lid he, "if th riiin.nts are reconstructed in a way that will pli the rebels over I Fnion men." •• Now, what has the Senate done?" Mr. Stevens asked. "Sent back to us an amendment which contain- every thing else but pro- :tion. Ii has -cut us hack a bill which raises the whole qi tion in dispute as to the best mode of reconstructing these Stat by distant and future pledges which this I \ -- has no auth ity to make and no power to execute. What power has this < Con- gress to say to a future Congress, When the Southern States have done certain things, you shall admit them, and receive their members into this Hous '.' " "Our friends," said he, in another part of his remark-, "who love this bill, love it now because the President is to execute it. as he has executed every law for the last two years by the mur- der ofUniou men. and by despising Congress and flinging into our teeth all that we seek to have done." Mr. Stevens thought that in two hours a Committee of Con- ference could frame a bill and report it to the Bouse free from all these difficulties— free from all this extraneous matter — which would protect every loyal man in the Southern State-, and Ho no injustice to the disloyal. Mr. Blaine supported the bill as it came from the Senate. ••( ,,. id he, "no more guara under this bill, the ri-ht of any rebel in anv State to vote than did Congress guar- antee to the rebels in Tcnn the right to vote." "Although this bill," said Mr. Wilson of Iowa, "does not ain all I de-ire to accomplish, it i mbrace much upon which 1 ha :cd. It reaches far which MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION ACT 537 the most sanguine of us hoped for a year ago. It secures equal suffrage to all loyal men ; it set- aside the pretended governments which now abuse power in the rebel States ; it insists on the rat- ification of the Constitutional Amendment, under the operation of which all the rebelswho now occupy official position in the i affected by this bill will be rendered ineligible to office, State or national; it presents an affirmative policy, on the part of Con- gress, hostile to that of the President ; it demonstrates the ability of Congress to agree upon a given line of future action; and, finally, it reserves to Congress jurisdiction over the whole c when the people of any Southern disorganized State may present a Constitution and ask for admission to this body as a part of the governing power of the nation. There is too much of good in this to be rejected. I will vote to concur in the amendment of the Senate." Mr. Bingham maintained that in the bill, as it passed the House, they had voted as extensive power- to the President as were conferred upon him by the bill as amended by the Senate. The former bill provided that the General in command of tl army should detail army officers; but all officers of the army are under command of the Commander-in-chief as constituted by I supreme law of the land. "For myself," said he, " 1 had rather that my right hand should forget its cunning, and that my tongue should cleave to the roof of my month, than to find myself here so false to my own convictions, and so false to the high trust com- mitted to me by that people who sent me here as to vote against this bill." "This bill," said Mr. Farnsworth, "provides a platform ten steps in advance of the platform upon which we went to the people last fall. We then only expected the ratification of the amendment to the Constitution proposed by Congress at its last -ion, and the formation of Constitutions, republican in form, which should give the people there the right to loyal men here as Senators and Representatives. I>at by this bill we extend impartial suffrage to the black man — universal suffra<: .'" " I am one of those who believe we ought to do s< paid Mr. Schenck. " I believe we ought to declare I States, as we do by this bill, that they shall be put under mar- tial law, and held by the strong hand to k until they have complied with whatever conditions are imposed upon 538 THE TUIi;T)--M.YTII CONGRESS. i. But while we do this, I think it equally important to an- nounce to them, to announce to the country, to announce to our ( stituents as the completion of the whole platform upon which ore ill" nation, the terms which we require of them." .M r. ( farfield favored the Senate amendment. " There are some gentlemen," said he, " who live among the eagles on the high mountain peaks, beyond the limit of perpetual frost, and thej 5 the lineaments in the face of freedom so much dearer than 1 do, whenever any measure comes here that seem- almost t<> grasp our purpose, they rise and tell us it is all poor and mean and a sur- render of liberty ." •• These terms embrace, in my judgment," said Mr. Thayer, "every guarantee, every safeguard, and every cheek which it is propel' for us to demand or apply. Upon these foundations we can safely build, for by them we retain the final control of the question in nm- own hands." Mr. Hotchkiss opposed the bill as amended. " [f you allow this bill to go into operation as it now -land.-/' said he, "with- out making any amendment of it- provisions, and permit these elections to be held, a- they must necessarily be held under this bill, under the authority, control, and regulation of the gov- ernments in those States, there will he no security whatever, and you will have the election- in New Orleans held under the trol of Mayor Monroe and the mob which he used to such fell purpose last summer. Thai i- the entertainment to which this I. ill invites us. •• 1 regard this as a Hank movement." said Mr. Bromwell, " by which is to be brought about thai darling scheme of certain poli- ticians — universal amnesty and universal suffrage. Whether it end in universal suffrage or not, one thing is certain, it is uni- ver-al amnesty." ••It would be emphatically," said Mr. Donnelly, "a govern- ment of rebels. 1 - y a government of rebels, because although the amendment which has reached US from the Senate contains the words, 'Except such as may be disfranchised for participa- tion in the rebellion,' thai disfranchisement has to come from the rebels I Ives, and surely there is no man upon this floor k enough to suppose that they will so disfranchise tin selvi Mr. LeBlond opposed both hill-. Of the one before the House, MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION ACT. 539 said: "This bill is quite as infamous, quite as absurd, as the bill that the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Stevens,] who is Chairman of the Committee on Reconstruction, contends for and hangs so tenaciously to. It confers all the pow- ers that that bill gives; it confers all the powers thai the most radical could claim consistently." •• I shall content myself/' said Mr. Eldridge, "with denouncing this measure as most wicked and abominable. It contains all that is vicious, all that is mischievous in any and all of the propositions which have come either from the Committee on Reconstruction or from any gentleman upon the other side of the House." "If you do not take this bill," said Mr. Delano, "although in all its parts it does not suit you, what are you likely to give the American people? Nothing. I will not return to my constitu- ents admitting that I have failed to try to do something in this great trial of the nation. It is not for rebels that I legislate; it is not for the right of those who have sought to destroy this Government that 1 extend mercy; but it is for the liberties, rights, and welfare of my country, for all parts of it." "If this hill be passed, said Mr. Banks, "in my belief there will be no loyal party known and no loyal voice heard in any of the-: Si -, from Virginia to Texas." Man)- members subsequently presented arguments and opinions for and against the bill, in speeches limited to fifteen minutes i:i rth. This occupied a session protracted until near midnight. On the following morning, February 19th, a vote was taken, and the Hon-.' refused to concur in the amendments of the Senate, and asked a Committee of Conference. The action of the Mouse having been announced in the Senate, that body immediately proceeded to consider a motion made by Mr. Williams, that they insist on their amendment and agree to the conference. The proposition to give the subject into the hands ol mmittee of Conference was opposed by many Sen- ators, who thought a question of so much importance should be deliberated upon in a full Senate. If such a committee were appointed, their repori could only be adopted or rejected without modification or amendment. They would only have the power which they possess over a nomination by tin- President — power to reject a nominee without naming another. ••'fir: result arrived at by the Senate in reference to this bill," 510 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. •r said Mr. ('(hum--, "was after the i nature consideration that was Jv'ii to any proposition thai ••ami-' before this body, resulting in an unanimity, at leas! on this side of the chamber, unparalleled in legislative proceedings— a result hailed by the country at large, demanded by the mosl intelligent and poAver- i'nl of the American press, alike acceptable to the industrial and commercial interests of the country, which suffer from a continual disorganization of the country affecting it- vital in- * dusfries." "The fact that it is a very important bill," said Mr. William-, only makes it the more nee as it seems to me, to adopt the usual practice in such cases"— that of appointing a < Jommittee of ( inference. Mr. Sumner favored the appointment of such a commit The Senate had made ii- best endeavor, the House had refused to concur, and now to ask that body to vote upon the question i a without a Committee of Conference would kill the hill. In such a case there could he no hope during the session for any jusl and beneficent measure either of protection <>r reconstruction. Mr. Fessenden had taken no part in the debate upon the hill when it was on it< passage. A majority of his political friends having determined that the measure which passed the £ the best that could he accomplished, he had lis <\\r,y not to prcsenl his individual objections to the hill. •• 1 would have very much preferred," -aid he, " the Military Bill, as it was called, pure ami simple, without having any thin- else upon it. and leaving to other legislation, if it was judged expedient, what else mighl lie don-." Mr. Trumbull had no; before -aid a word in reference to this hill. He never regarded the Military Hill as it came from the ■ 1 1 . . : i - of Representatives as of the slightest importance. 8 etion fourteenth of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill conferred all the pow- ers given in .the Military Hill. Ii bad not been used for the pi-' of the loyal people of the South, would the reitera- tion of the statute he to any purpose? Yet Mr. rrumbull thought tli endment put upon the hill by the Senate tained every guarantee that had ever been asked lor by any one. was unwilling that a great question like this, open in all its parts, should he submitted to a Committee of Conferen The vote was finally taken, after a prolonged discussion, i MIL I T. I R I ' RECO, \ 'STR I 7 77a V . ICT. 54 7 oate insisted on its amendment, and refused to appoint a Com- mittee of < Conference. The bill having gone back to the Hon-;' of Representatives, they resolved by a vote of one hundred and twenty-six to forty- six to recede from their disagreement to the amendment of the Senate, and to concur in the same with amendments, providing that no person excluded from holding office by the recently pro- posed Constitutional Amendment should be eligible for member- ship in the convention to frame a constitution for any of the rebel States, nor should any such person be allowed to vote for members of such convention. Another amendment proposed by the House was the addition of a section (sixth) to the bill provid- ing that until the rebel States should be admitted to representa- tion in Congress, airy civil governments existing therein should be deemed provisional only, and subject to the paramount author- ity of the United States, who may at any time abolish, modify, control, or supersede them. This qualified concurrence on the part of the House having been announced in the Senate, that body proceeded immediately to consider the question of acquiescence. . Mr. Sherman said that his only objection to the amendment of the House was, that it disfranchised ten or fifteen thousand lead- ing rebels from voting at the elections, yet he was willing' to agree to the amendment. Mr. Sumner congratulated Mr. Sherman on the advanced step he had taken. " To-morrow." said Mr. Sumner. " I hope to wel- come the Senator to some other height." Mr. Sherman was unwilling to admit that he had coin" to Mr. Sumner's stand-point. lie was willing to accept the hill, although it excluded a few thousand rebels from voting, yet " I would rather have them all vol"," said he. " white and black, under the stringent restrictions of this hill, and let the governments of the Southern State- that are aboul now to rise upon the permanent foundation of universal liberty and universal equality, stand upon the consent of the governed, white and black, former slaves and former masters." Then followed an extended discussion of the question as to whether the Senate should agree to the amendments proposed by the House. Mr. Doolittle proposed and advocated an amend- ment providing that nothing in the bill should he construed to 54% Till: TEIRTY-NWTR COXGRESS. disfranchise persons who have received pardon and amnesty. This amendment was rejected — yeas, 8 ; nays, 33. The vote was then taken upon the final pass _ f the bill amended by the House; il passed the Senate — ; 35; -.7. The Bill "to provide for the more efficient government of 1 1 1« ■ I States/' having thus passed both houses of Congress on the 20th of February, it was immediately submitted to the President for his approval. ( )n the second of March the President returned the bill to the House, in which it originated, with his objections, whi grave that he hoped a statement <>(' them might " have some in- fluence on the minds of the patriotic and enlightened men with whom the decision must ultimately rest." The Veto Message was immediately read by the clerk of House of Representatives. The following extracl sent the President's principal objections to the measun "The bill places all the people of the ten States therein ■ i tier the lute domination of military rulers. * •■ Li is not denied that the States in question have cadi of them an actual government, with all the powers, executive, judicial, and rhich ■ rly belong to a frei ii They arc organized like th I • States of the Union, and like them they make, administer, and • • which concern their domestic affairs. An existing _ . . iinent, ex- ercising such functions as these, is itself the law of the -• n all mat- ters within its jurisdiction. To pronounce the supreme lav nj> power of an established State illegal is to say that law itself is unlawful "The in i I it at \ rule which it establishes is plainly to be us purpose of order or for the prevention of crime, but solely as a mean- of coercing the people into the adoption of principles and measur vhich it i- known that they arc opposed, and upon which they ha\ liable right to exercise their own judgment ■■ I submit to Congress whether this measure is not, in its whole charae- scope, and object, without precedent and without authority, in palpable conflict with the plainest provisions of the Constitution, and utti struc- tive to those great principles of liberty and humanity for which mr ances- tors on both sides of the Atlantic have shed so much blood and expended - i much treasure **** + * * "The power thus given to the commanding officer over all the p< each district is that of an absolute monarch. UN mere will is to take the place of all law. The law of the States is now the only rule applicable to the subjects placed under his control, and that is completely displaced by the clause which declares all interference of State authority to be null and MIL 1 1\ IRY R E( U >. \ 'S TR ! 7 77 ON AC T. He alone is permitted to determine what are rights of person or prop- erty, and he may protect them in such way as in his discretion may seem proper, It places at his free disposal all the lands and goods in his district, and he may distribute them without let or hinderance to whom he pleases Being bound by uo State law, and thei'e being no other law to regulate the subject, he may make a criminal code of his own. and he can make it as bloody as ;;u\ recorded in history, or he can reserve the privilege of n upon the impulse of his private passions in each case that arises He is bound by no rules of evidence ; there is indeed no provision by which he is authorized or required to take any evidence at all. Every thing is a crime which he chooses to call so, and all persons arc condemned whom he pro- nounces to be guilty. He is not bound to keep any record or mike any report of his proceedings. He may arrest his victims wherever he finds i. without warrant, accusation, or proof of probable cause. If he gives them a trial before he inflicts the punishment, he gives it of his grace and mercy, not because he is commanded so to do. ******** "Cruel or unusual punishment is not to be inflicted, hut who i~ to decide what is cruel and what is unusual? ***** Each officer may define cruelty according to his own temper, and if it is not usual, he \rill make it usual. Corporal punishment, imprisonment, the gag, the hall and chain, and the almost insupportable forms of torture invented for military punishment lie within the range of choice. The sentence of a commission is not to he executed without being approved by the commander, if it affects life or liberty, and a sentence of death must be approved by the President. This applies to eases in which there has been a trial and sentence. 1 take it to hi' clear, under this hill, that the military commander may condemn to death without even the form of a trial by a military commission, so that the life id' the condemned may depend upon the will of two men instead of one. " It is plain that the authority here given to the military officer amounts to absolute despotism. ****** * * ''I come now to a question which is. if possible, still more important. Have we the power to establish and carry into execution a measure like this? I answer certainly not. if we derive our authority from the Con- stitution, and if we are bound by the limitations which ir imposes. This proposition is perfectly (dear: that no branch of the Federal Government; executive, legislative, or judicial, can have any just power- except those which it derives through and exercises under the organic law of the Union. Outside of the Constitution we have no legal authority more than private citizens, and within it we have only so much as that instrument gives us. This broad principle limits all our function and applies to all subjects. It protects not only the citizens of States which are within the Union, hut it shields every human being who comes or is brought under our jurisdiction. We have no right to do in one place more than in another thai which tiie Constitution says wc shall not do at all. U] therefore, the Southern Si THE THIBTY-XLYTR CONGI I I their ; which the fundamental law fori "If an insurrection should take place in one of mir Stal authority of the State government, and end in th throwing of those who planned it, would they take away th eople of the where it was favored by a part or a majority of the population? Could ,,•], a r< wholly outlawed and I of their re I I have always contended that the ; ign within it-; constitutional sphere; that it it- laws like the States themselves, by applying its • reive power directly to individuals; and that it could put down insurrection with the -am.- ,,„1 n0 other. The opposite doctrine i- the worst her those ission, and ran not '»■ agreed to without admitting that heresy to b * * * "This is a Kill passed ; I rress in time of peace. There i- not in any or I' the Stat.- _ 'it under its operation either war or insurre The law- '1 of tli'- Federal Government an' ali in undistu and harmonious operation. The courts, - ind Federal, are open and in the full exercise of their proper authority. OveT - —1 in five military districts life, liberty, ami property are secured by Stat.; laws ami Federal laws, and the national Constitution is every-where enfi and every-wi ed. * * - * * * * "Actual war. foreign invasion, domestic insurrection — m these ap- pear, and none of these in tart exist. It is not even recited that an of war or insurrection i> threatened. " Upon this question of constitutional law and the power of 1 President gave quotations from "a recent decision of the Supreme Court ex parte Milligan." Having commented upon this opinion, the President proceeded with his objections: " I need not say to the Representatives of the American people that their Constitution forbids the exer judicial power in any way hut one: that i-. by the ordained and established courts. |: is equally well known that, in all criminal by jury is made h sable by the ex] i instrument. I will not enlarge on the inestimable value of the nred to every freeman, or speak of the danger to public li' in all part- of tin try, which must ensue from a denial of it anywhere, or upon any pretens "The United Stntes are hound to guaranty to each State a republican form »'au it he pretended that this obligation i- not palpa- bly broken if we carry out a measure like this, which wipes away every \ and put the life, property, liberty and honor of nil the people in each of them under the domination Bingle person clothed with unlimited authority. ILITARY RECONSTRUCTION ACT. 545 ''The purpose and object of the bill — the general intent which pervades it from beginning to end— is to change the entire structure and character of the State governments, and to compel them by force to the adoption of organic law- and regulations which they are unwilling to accept if left to themselves. The negroes have not asked for the privilege of voting; the vast majority of them have no idea what it means. This bill not only thrusts ir into their hands, but compels them, as well as the whites, to use it in a particular way. If they do not form a Constitution with prescribed articles in it. and afterward elect a Legislature which will art upon certain measures in a prescribed way. neither blacks nor whites can lie reliev< d from the slavery which the hill imposes upon them. Without pausing here to consider the policy or impolicy "I' Africanizing the Southern part of our territory. I would simply ask the attention of Congress to that mani well-known, and universally-acknowledged rule of constitutional law which declares that the Federal Government has no jurisdiction, authority, or power to regulate such subjects for any State. To force the right of suffrage out of the hands of the white people and into the hands of the negroes is an arbitrary violation of this principle. ••This bill imposes martial law at once, and its operations will begin so soon as the General and his troops caii be put in place. The dread alter- native between its harsh rule and compliance with the terms of this meas- ure is not suspended, nor are the people afforded any time for free delib- eration. The bill says to them, Take martial law first, then deliberate. ;:; ,:j ;;;. * » « S * "The bill also denies the legality of the governments of ten of the States which participated in the ratification of the amendment to the Federal Con- stitution abolishing slavery forever within the jurisdiction of the United States, and practically excludes them from the Union. "That the measure proposed by this bill does violate the Constitution in the particulars mentioned, and in many other ways which 1 forbear to enu- merate is too (dear to admit of the least doubt. <-i s * * x * * * » * "I am thoroughly convinced that any settlement, or compromise, or plan of action which is inconsistent with the principles of the Constitution, will not only be unavailing, but mischievous; that it will but multiply the nt evils instead of removing them. The Constitution, in its whole integrity ami vigor, throughout the length and breadth of the land, is the - of all compromises. Besides, our duty does not, in my judgment, leave us a choice between that and any other. I believe that it contains the rem- edy that is so much needed, ami that it' the coordinate branches of the Gov eminent would unite upon its provisions, they would be found broad em an 1 strong enough to sustain, in time of peace, the nation which they bore safely through the ordeal of a protracted civil war. Among the most sacred guarantees of that instrument are those which declare that 'each State shall have at least one Representative,' and that 'no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of it- equal suffrage in the Senate.' Kadi house is made the 'judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of 35 6 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. \ii members, and may, 'with the concurrem f two-thirds, expel a member.' * m - • "And is it not far better that the work of restoration should be accom- plished by simple compliance with the plain requirements of the Constitu- tion, than by a recourse to measures which, in eflect, destroy the States, and threaten the subversion of the General Government? All that is u< sary to settle tlii- simple but important question, without further agitation or delay, is a willingness, on the part of all, to sustain the Constitution, and carry its provisions into practical operation. If to-morrow either branch of Congress would declare that, upon the presentation of their credentials, members constitutionally elected, and loyal to the General Go emu would be admitted to seats in Congress, while all others would i scluded, and their places remain vacant until the selection by the people of loyal and qualified persons; and if, ;it the same time, assurance were ^iven that this policy would be continued until all the States were represented in Con- gress, it would send a thrill of joy throughout the entire hind, as indicating the inauguration of m which must spee lily bring tran [utility t«> the public mind. "While we are legislating upon subjects which are of great importance to the whole people, and which must affect all parts of the country, not only during the life of the present generation, but for ages to come, we should remember that all men are entitled at least to a beariug in the councils which decide upon the destiny of themselves and their children. At pr ten States are denied representation, and when the fortieth Congress assembles, on the fourth day of the present month, sixteen Stales will be without a voice in the House of Representatives. This grave fact, with the important questions before us, should induce us to pause in a course of legislation, which, looking solely to the attainment of political ends, fails to consider the rights it transgresses, the law which it violates, or the institutions which it imperils. "ANDREW JOHNSON. 1 ' After the reading of the message, the question came up. "Shall the hill pass, the objections of the President to the contrary not- withstanding? " Mr. Eldridge declared that it would be the duty of the minor- ity, if it were within their physical power, to defeat the hill. "Bui we are conscious," said he, "that no effort of ours can prevent ii~ passage, and the consequent accomplishment of a dissolution of the Union, and the overthrow and abandonment of our constitution of government. We can only, in the uanie of the < institution, in the name of the republic, in the name of all we hold dear on earth, earnestly, solemnl} protest against this action of this < longress." Ml KY RECONSTRUCTION ACT. 547 Mr. LeBlond said that " the passage of this bill would be the death-knell of republican liberty upon this continent/' He de- clared his willingness, if a sufficient number on his side <>!' the House would stand by him, to resist to the utmost extremity of physical exhaustion the passage of this bill, which would "strike a death-blow to this Government." Mr. Steven- would not be discourteous to those who wen op- posed to this bill: "I am aware," said he, "of the melancholy feelings with which they arc approaching this funeral of the nation." He was unwilling-, however, to lose the opportunity to pass the bill at once, and send it to the Senate, that the House might proceed to other matters. The vote was taken, and the House passed the bill over the President's veto— yeas, 135; nays, 48. The announcement of this result was followed by great applause on the floor and in the galleries. The immense numbers that had assembled in the galleries of the House to witness these proceedings went immediately to the other end of the Capitol to see the reception which the Veto Message would receive in the Senate. The consideration of the subject, however, was deferred until the evening --don. The Veto Message having been read in the Senate by the Sec- retary, the pending question at once became whether the hill should pass notwithstanding the objections of the President? Mr. Johnson advocated the passage of the bill over the veto. " It contains," said he speaking of the President's message, " some legal propositions which are unsound, and many errors of reason- ing. I lament the course be has thought it his duty to pursue, because 1 see that it may result in continued turmoil and peril, not oily to the South, but to the entire country. I see before me •■> distressed, a desolated country, and in the measure before you 1 think I see the means through which it may be rescued and restored erelong to prosperity and a healthful condition, and the free institution- of our country preserved." In reply to a charge of inconsistency brought against him by Mr. Buckalew, Mr. Johnson said: "Consistency in a public man can never properly be esteemed a virtue when lie becomes satis- fied that it will operate to the prejudice of his country. The pride of opinion, which more or less belongs to us all, becomes, in my judgment, in a public man, a crime when it is indulged THE THIRTT-.YIXTH I \ Gl at the - xifici or hazard of the j nil » 1 i * - - I He urged upon ill, ; if the South their acccptaiv I I ms propos bv ( '"! In view of tin- probability rtures should be rejeci d. harsher m 'asures would be res Mr. Saulsbury expressed his admiration for I •'.-' Pr in "vetoing rlt<- most iniquitous lull that ever w presented to the federal Congress." there may be no man within the limits of th - Sta will participate in his own disgrace, degradation, and ruin: . them maintain their honor, it'll, wrath in the vials tin' Almighty, if there be arrows of vengeance in his quiver, su iniquity and injustice can not finally prov< - ssful." Mr. Hendricks disagreed with the Sen::- laware that the people of the South, at once and without consideration, m turn their hacks upon the proposition now made them in or< to maintain their honor. He hoped they would bring to the ■ isideration of the subjeci the coolest judgment and the higlx patriotism. He was -till opposed to the bill; he approved the President's veto. His judgment against the measure had hem " fortified and strengthened by that able document." The discussion of the question was conti •> Messrs. Buck- alew, Dixon, and Davis, who spoke againsl ill. The frien of the measure were content to let the sub ■ without a fur- ther word from them, save the solemn and final declaration ■■• their votes. The question being taken, the hill I over the \ by a vote of almost four-fifths. Thi ighl Senators voted for the hill in its final passage, and bul found willing to stand by the President and his veto. The hill whose progress through < oi thus been traced became a law of the land in the followi m: \ , provide for the more efficient governin ■• Wl no legal S i - or ade jual iw exists in the reb Stat • Virginia, \ Carolina, South Carolina, f! isippi, Alahania, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Vrkan -• - and it is ne lessary that p r should he enforced in said States until loyal and rej Sta omenta can he Legally established therefore, ■ /;. § // f the V States of America in \ I I States shall be divided into milium districts and made subji ry authority MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION ACT. 5A9 •.* the United States, as hereinafter prescribed; and for thai purpose Vir shall constitute the first district, North Carolina and South Carolina the second district, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida the third district, Mississippi and Arkansas tin' fourth district, and Louisiana and Texas the fifth dist "Sec. 2. Ana . That it shall be the duty of the I ident lu assign to the command of each of said districts an officer oi army not below the rank of brigadier general, and to detail a sufficient military force to enable such officer to perform his duties and enforce his authority within the district to which he is assigned. "Sec. 3. And be itfurtl Thai it shall be the duty of each i B assigned, as aforesaid, to protect all persons in their rights of person ind property, to suppress insurrection, disorder, and violence, and to punish, or cause to be punished, all disturbers of the public peace and criminals, and to this end he may allow local civil tribunals to take jurisdiction of and to try offenders, or when in his judgmenl ir may be necessary for the trial of offenders he shall have power to organize military commissions or tribunals for that purpose, and all interference, under color of State authority, with exercise of military authority under this act shall l>e null and void. "Sec. 4.' And ■ ■''. That all persons puf under military arrest by virtue of this act shall be tried without unnecessary delay, and no cruel or unusual punishment shall be inflicted, and no sentence of any mil- itary commission or tribunal hereby authorized, affecting the life or liberty of any person, shall be executed until it is approved by the officer in mand of the distri : and the laws and regulations for the governmi ., i army shall not be ai ;. this act, except in so far as they conflic its provisions: I I That no sentence of death under the provi io this act shall be carried into effect without the approval of the Preside; "Sec. 5. And 6< ■'■_ That when the people of any one oi rebel States shall have formed a constitution of government in coi with the Constitution of the I nited States in all respects, framed I . .■ ven ion of di elected by the male citizens of said State tw< n vears old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition, have been resident in said State for one year previous to the day of - election, except such as may be disfranchised for participation in the n ; n or for felony at common law, and when sue! ution shall providi I i the elective franchise shall lie enjoyed by all such persons as have the quali- fications herei ■ 1 tor electors of delegates, and when such Constil shall be ratified by a majority of the persons voting on the question cation who are qualified a- electors for d . and when such constiti shall have b tted to Congress lor examination and approval, and press shall have approved the same, and when said St; its Legislatun d under said constitution, shall have adopted the ail ment to the Constitution of the United ; a proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, and known a- article fourteen, and when said article shall become a part of the Constitution of the United St id State shall be declared entitled to repr n ii Coi tnd Senators and Repn atives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking th ith prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the precedin ns of this act shall be in* p 550 THE THIRTY-NLYTH COJ\ in - Th • • ion excluded B : i ti _r office by said proposed amendment to the < tion <>t' the I'luted to election as a memb( or an; aor shall tin for ich convention. - • That, until the ?aid atation in th - teg civil government which may exist there ii - pro- only, and in all respects subject to the paramount authority of I I |. ■ me i" abolish, modify, control, : in all e •■ under such provisiona a • shall be entitled t< and none - who are tli. us of the Hi mi ..!' this act; and no person shal to any office under such provisional governments who would ualified from holding office under the provisions " ; ' the third s Co istitu- tiona! Amendment. The friends of this measure were dissatisfied with it on the ground of its incompleteness in not containing provisions for car- rying it into effect in accordance with the purpose of it- trainers. This record would be incomplete without a statement of what was done to perfect the measure in the suec ling Congn The Fortieth C ss, meeting on the 1th of March, immedi- ately upon the close >l* it- predecessor, proceed liout delay to perfect and pass over the President's veto a bill supplementary to the act to provide for the more efficient anient of the rebel ' By this act it was provided that the commanding general of each district should cause a registration to 1"- made of the male citizens twenty-one year- of age in liis district, qualified t*i vote under the former act. In order to be registered as a voter under this act, a person is required to -wear that he has not been disfranchised for participation in any rebellion or civil war against the United States, nor for felony : that he has never been a member of any State Legislature, nor held any executive oi j idicial office in any State and afterward engaged in insure tion or rebellion againsl th< United States, or given aid or com- fort to the i tfj that lie has never taken an oath as a member of < ' ingress of the United State-, or as a member of an " Legislature, or i executive or judicial officer of any Stale, to support til- Constitution of the United Si -. and aft wad engaged in insurrection or rebellion againsl the United Stat'->, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof, and that MILTT. 1 R I ' E Et 'OBSTRUCTION ■ ICT. 551 he will faithfully support the Constitution and obey the laws of the United States, and encourage others to do so. Persons thus qualified shall vote at elections held for the pur- pose of selecting delegates to the conventions for training consti- tutions for the States. A majority of voter- so qualified shall determine whether con- stitutional conventions shall he held in the several States, and shall vote for delegates who shall be as numerous as the members of the most numerous branch of the Legislature of such State in the year 1860. This convention having framed a constitution, it -hall be submitted to the people, and if ratified by a majority of the qualified voters, it shall be forthwith transmitted to Con- gress. If this constitution is satisfactory to Congress, and found to he in accordance with the provisions of the act of which this is supplementary, the State shall be declared entitled to repre- sentation. All elections are required to be by ballot, and all officers acting under the provisions of this act are required to take the test oath. ,;,-,.' THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. CHAPTER XXIII. OTHER [MPORTANT A' I I i.izim. Bounties — The Army — The Department of Education— South- ern BOMESTEADS -The BANKRUPT L.AW — THE TARIFF — REDUC riOM OF TAXES — Contracting the Currency — Issue of Three Peb < ents. — Nebraska AND Cc! I sure of Ofj THE great national measures, whose progress through Con- 3S has been given in detail, occupied the attention of that body continuously, from the first days of its existence to the closing hours of its la-t session. No day passed whi was not rendered important by something said or dune upon questions which concern not only the nation, but humanity, and which are of interest not only for the present, but for all time to come. While these great measures were passing through Con- gress, making it memorable, and absorbing the public attention, there was a constant undercurrent of patient, laborious legislation upon subjects of less interest to the public, but of real impor- tance to the country. One of the first duties devolving upon the Thirty-ninth Con- - was the -reat work of disbanding the vasl volunteer army which had suppressed the rebellion, saved the country, and earned the undying gratitude of the nation. The soldiers of the repub- lie were to be paid for their distinguished services, their reason- able demand- for equalization of bounty were to be met, and a suitable number retained in the service for the necessities of the nation on a "peace footing." Near the close of the first session, a bill to equalize soldiers' bounties passed the House by a nearly unanimous vote, but was defeated in the Senate. This measure was at length carried by attaching it to the Civil Appropriation Bill in such a way that it could not be easily disengaged. Near IMPORTANT ACTS. 553 tlw close of the first session. Congress passed the " A.c1 to incr and iix the military peace establishment of the United Stat By this law the regular army consists of live regiments of artil- lery, ten regiments of cavalry, and forty-five regiments of in- fantry. It acknowledged the services and claims of the volunteer officers and men who served in the recent war by providing tin'.; a large proportion of the commissions in the new service sin In- conferred upon them. At the same time the standard of at- tainment and talent was not lowered, since the law provided for such an examination as must exclude the unqualified and relieve the army from some who unworthily held commissions. The important fact that general intelligence is one of the greatest safeguards of the nation was fully recognized by the Thirty-ninth Congress. Of this they gave permanent proof in establishing a Bureau of Education. Early in the first session, Mr. Donnelly, of Minnesota, introduced a resolution instructing the joint Committee on Reconstruction to impure into the expe- diency of establishing a National Bureau of Education "to enforce education, without regard to color." The necessity lor such a measure was set forth in the preamble to arise from the fact that "republican institutions can find permanent safety only upon the basis of the universal intelligence of the people," and that "the great disasters which have afflicted the nation and desolated one- half its territory are traceable in a great degree to the absence of common school- and general education among the people of lately rebellious States." This resolution passed the House by a large majority. This subject was subsequently referred to an able selecl co mittee, of which Mr. Garfield was chairman. On the 5th of June he reported a hill to establish a Department of Education. The measure was supported by Messrs. Donnelly, Garfield, Banks, and Boutwell, and opposed \)y Messrs. Dike. Rog< rs, and Ran- dall. The hill passed the House on the DHh of -lime and w to the Senate, where it was referred to the Commitl e on the Judiciary. The hill went over, in the pros of busiu --. to the second session, and passed the Senate on the 28th of February, 18G7. A measure indirectly connected with the subject of i ruc- tion, destined to have an important influence upon the futun Southern society, was introduced by Mr. Julian on the 7th of 51 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. February, 1866. This was a bill for the disposal of the public lands for homesteads to actual settlers, without distinction of color, in the States of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Florida, providing that the quantity of land selected by any one person should be eighty acres, and not one hundred and sixty acres, as provided in the Homestead Bill of L862. The necessity of this measure, as shown by Mr. Julian, arose from the abolition of slavery and the demand- of free labor. It was designed to cut off land speculation in the Southern country. " Without some provision of this kind."' said Mr. .Julian, "rebel speculators now hovering over the whole of that region, and hunting up the best portion of it, and the holder- of Agricultural College scrip can come down upon it at one fell swoop and cheat the actual settler, whether white or Mack, out of his rights, or even the possibility of a home in that region, driving the whole of them to some of our Western Territories or to starvation itself." The bill was finally passed in the House on the 28th of Febru- ary, L867, with an amendment excluding from the benefit of the aet persons who have borne arms against the United States, or given aid and comfort to its enemies. A work of legislation of much importance, destined to h beneficent effect upon the business interests of the country, was the passage of the Bankrupt Law, which was finally cuacl I the close of the Thirty-ninth Congress. The Bankrupt Bill passed the House of Representatives as early as May, 1866, but the Senate objecting to the entire principle of the bill, it was postponed till December. < >n the reassembling of Congress for the second session, the consideration of the Bankrupt Bill was resumed, and after much opposition in the Senate, it finally re- ceived the support of a decisive majority in thai body of all shades of politics. The perfection and final passage of this »ure were among the last acts of the Thirtv-ninth Congress. The Bankrupt Law of 1800 was enacted in the interest of creditors, and that of 1841 for the benefit of debtors. The law of 1867 was framed with a view to protect the interests of both parties. The passage of this important law is due mainly to the energy and perseverance of Thomas A. Jenckes, of Rhode Island. The subject of the tariff occupied, first an I last, a considerable share of the time and attention of the Thirty-ninth Congress. \n the early part of the first session numerous petition- poured IMPORTANT ACTS. 555 in upon Congress in favor of a protective tariff, in June and July the subject was discussed, and a Tariff Bill passed the House by a vote of ninety-four to fifty-three. The friends of protection said of this bill that though not perfect, it was "a decided improvement on the tariff in existence." The bill, on its introduction to the Senate was postponed till December. There was soon after introduced into the House a revised Tariff Bill, entitled a bill "to protect the revenue." Gradually many of the features which the advocates of protection regarded :is most important, were eliminated from the bill. This was passed in the Senate on the 24th of July, with amendments in which the House was unwilling to concur. A Committee of Conference was appointed, who made a report which was accepted by both Houses of Congress. The hill greatly modified and "enfeebled" a- its original friends regarded it, finally passed on the dav before the close of the first session. The subject of diminishing taxation, as far as consistenl with the obligations of the nation to its creditors, early enlisted and occupied the attention of the Thirty-ninth Congress. The prin- ciple upon which Congress acted was announced by the distin- guished chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, Mr. Morrill, to be " The abolition or speedy reduction of all taxes which tend to check development, and the retention of all those which lih the income tax fall chiefly on realized wealth." In the midst of many conflicting interests and in the face of remonstrance^ protests, and prayers from every trade and profes- sion ( ss proceeded to work out the difficult question. As a result of most patient and careful investigation, Congress found itself aide to reduce to the extent of one hundred millions of dollars p annum, the taxation resting upon the shoulders of the American people. On the subject of finance and the national currency great di- v srsity of opinion existed among leading members of the Thirty- ninth Congress. Unanimity prevailed upon the opinion thai the currency should sooner or later be subjected to suitable contrac- ti n. but there was diversity of sentiment as to the ways and means by which this result should be achieved without involving the country in commercial and financial disaster. " 1 am for specie payments." remarked Mr. Stevens, on one occasion, "when we can arrive at them without crushing the 556 THE Til I II TT-. \ 7. V Til < community to death. I am for arriving at specie pa; .-till allowing the business of the country to y ! thrive, ;i;id the people engaged in business to pay the ta: tich you impose on them. 1 say thai there i- not a man in I ununity who would not as soon have one dollar in gn dol- lar in gold. No one expects to be paid in gold ti resumption by the bank- of specie payment; nobody now any other currency than gre nbacks, and, th I am in favor of keeping that currency. In my judgment, we l»av< not more circulation now than the expanded business of tin uutry re- quit •• This war has given an immense impulse to every thi Whence this precipitation? We have barely got the war against the rebels before we have a war made upon the busi community, upon the manufacturing interests, and upon others." " When this greal Republican party was made up," said Mr. Wentworth, "we, who were originally Democrats, took up a cross, and it was a great cross. [Laughter.] We were told that if we went into that thing, we should have to lay down t of the irresponsible paper-money men. Now, 1 ■■, know of the gentleman distinctly, whether, if he could, he specie payments to-morrow '.' " "it'.'" replied Mr. Stevens, " 1 could have specie pay men 1 I morrow, without deranging the business of the country, t wo [f it would derange the business of the country to return to specie payment at once, 1 would postpone it a little. 1 v< the Legal-tender Bill; and 1 am glad I did so, for the com would nol have survived without it." •• Would you compromise on a year?" asked Mr. Wentwo •• No, sir; nor on two year-," replied Mr. Stevens. " England did not resume specie payment the year after t France. The Bank of England issued paper moi it the Government had £14,01 stock of that bank to give icurity, and the Government prevented it from resuming specie paymenl until it I it b st. Now. when war of twenty-five year- was over, did England at: in 1814 and 1815, to return to specie payment? They had afloat £20,000,000, or $100,000,000, and they began wit ir one- pound notes. In a few year- they took their two-] IMPORTANT ACTS. 557 srward they took their five-pound notes. But they never re- sumed full ?pecie payment until the latter pad of the year L822. Does my friend from [llinois expeci me to be wiser than the ■ real men of England '.' " "Does my friend from Pennsylvania deny," asked Mr. Gar- Id, "that in 1819 the law for resuming specie payment was • ?sed, to go into effect gradually at first, and completely in 23, and that the full resumption of specie payment actually k place early in the Spring of 1821 — only about a year and - uarters from the passage of the law?" "Yes," answered Mr. Stevens, "except in very large sums. The law authorized them to go on until the first of .January, 1823." "But they resumed in 1821, about a year and three-quarters earlier," said Mr. Garfield. •• About a year earlier," said Mr. Stevens. "But the law did .. i pass until four years after the war. Do gentlemen here ex- pect, when England, with almost all the commerce of the world at her command, was unable to resume specie payments for eight irs ifter the conclusion of her wars, and then did it by such gradual legislation that there should be no shock to the business of the country — do gentlemen expect that we are to put it into the power of one man to compel the resumption of specie pay- ments in a single year'.' " "I want to know," said Mr. Wentworth, "if the power, and ■ • patronage, and the influence of the great Republican party, called, is to be used to deprive us of our natural standard Now, T wish, while we go together, to be perfectly nest. Nobody respects the talents of my friend from Pennsyl- vania [Mr. Stevens] more than 1 do. He know- more than all is put together. [Laughter.] I want him to state to the nise, fairly and candidly, whether, if we follow him, he will ■ \ us to specie payment; or whether, if he could, he would." '•I will say to my friend," replied Mr. Steven.-, "that in this rts,. I do not act as a member of the Republican party." "1 have followed the gentlemen," -aid Mr. Wentworth, ''he- cause I supposed him to he a Republican leader." "If I believed," -aid Mr. Stevens, "that we could resume specie payments in a month without crushing the int - of ■ country, without injuring the laborer, without hreaking 55 s rn /•; y II 1 1; r ) -. \ v. \ • 77/ ctfjn ; ze ess down the manufacturer, without oppressing th< le, without decreasing the revenues of the Government; it* I ! power, 1 would order every bank in the country, State and national, and the Government also, to resume specie paym< "Suppose McCulloch could do that," said Mr. Wentworth, ••and give all our boys their money at par." "• It' lie could do it. I would give him great i id Mr. Stevens. ■• 1 believe he can," said Mr. Wentworth. • My friend is large," said Mr. Stevens, "and ith like two grains of mustard-seed." Plans were devised, and ultimately carried through Congr - . by winch the great volume of paper currency should be gradually reduced at a certain fixed rate, so thai the people might know how to calculate the future, and be enabled to provide ag commercial crash. The first measure designed to accomplish this result was popu- larly called the Loan Bill, which was amendatory of an act "to provide ways and mean- to support the Government." When first considered, in March, 1866, it was defeated in the Hon--. It was soon after brought up again in a modified form, and passed both the House and Senate by large majorities. The act provide,! thai the Secretary of the Treasury might revive treas- ury notes, <>r "other obligations issued under any act of < gress," in exchange for bonds. The contraction of the currency was restricted and limited by the provision thai not more than ten millions of dollars might be retired and canceled within six months from the passage of the act, and thereafter not more than lour millions of dollars in any one month. A financial problem ot* great importance presented itself solution in the second session of the Thirty-ninth Congress. A large amount of compound-interest note-, weighed down with accrued interest, had ceased to float as currency, and lay in the vaults of the banks and the coffers of capitalists, awaiting re- demption. The question arose as to how thev should he re- deemed, and the nation saved the payment of the immense amounts of interest which must accumulate in course of time. The House of Representatives proposed to pass an act author- izing and directing the Secretary of the Treasury to issue legal- IMPORTANT ACTS. 559 tender notes, without interest, not exceeding * 1 00,000,000, in place of the compound-interesi bearing notes. To this proposition the Senate would not accede, and passed a substitute which the House would not accept. A Committee Conference reported a modification of the Senate's substitute, which finally became a law, providing that, tor the purpose of redeeming and retiring compound-interest notes, the Secretary oi the Treasury should issue temporary loan certificates, to the amount of $50,000,000, at a rate of interest not exceeding thro per cent, per annum. While the greater share of the attention of the Thirty-ninth Congress was occupied with efforts to reconstruct the eleven States which had forfeited their rights by rebellion, the Terri- tories of Colorado and Nebraska applied for admission to the Union. Congress voted to admit both, but the President ob- structed their entrance with his vetoes. Congress, on reconsid- eration, admitted Nebraska, the objections of the President to the contrary notwithstanding-. Colorado was not so fortunate, since her people had been so unwise as to prejudice their cause by restricting the enjoyment of political rights by ingrafting t' word "white'' into their fundamental law. By this mistake they forfeited the favor of the " Radicals," who refused to cham- pion their cause against the President. Incidental to this, Con- gress ordained that political rights should not he restricted in the Territories on account of race or color. The manifest evils of unrestricted Executive patronage — the bane of American polities — early enlisted the efforts of the Thirty-ninth Congress to provide a remedy. A hill to regulate appointments to ami removals from office was introduced by Mr. Henderson into the Senate near the close of the firsl session, and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, but never saw the light as an act of Congress. The President's power of removal and appointment having been unsparingly used during the recess of Congress, the coun- try became convinced that a remedy should be applied which would be effectual for time to come. On the first day of the second session, Mr. Williams brought before the Senate a hill to "regulate the tenure of offices," which was subsequently re- ferred to the joint Committee on Retrenchment, On the LOth of December Mr. Edmunds, chairman of this committee, reported 30 THE THTRTT-.YLYTH CO.Y the bill tn the Senate, with In bringrii rard - Mr. Edmunds asserted that thev were acting in no spirit <>f hostility t<» any party or administration whs . but for ■'ilic true republican interest <>i" the country under all ad- ministrations, and under the domination <>t" all parties in the growth before tin' nation in the future." After grave considera- tion and protracted discuasion in both lion-- of Congress, the hill was passed near the close <>{' the session. On the 2d of March the hill encountered the veto i>t" the President, who in the measure serious interference with the ability <>f the Ex- ecutive to keep hi- oath to preserve, protect, and d< fend the ititution of the United State-. The hill was immediately over the veto without debate. The act thus passed provides that officers appointed by ami with the advice ami consent of the Senate shall hold their ofl until their successors arc in like manner appointed ami qualified. Members of the Cabinet hold their offices during the term of President by whom thev are appointed, and for one month eafter, - bject to removal by consent of the Senate. TEE PRESIDENT AND CONGEE 501 CHAPTER XXIV. the president and congress. The President's treatment of thk South — First Anntai. Message — Mr. Sumner's Criticisji — The Presideni triumphant — Hf. damages his Cause Humor of Mr. Stevens — Vetoes overridden — The Question submitted to TiiK People — Their Verdict — Summary of Vetoes — Impeachment— Charges by Mr. A.rhi.e'v — Report of the Committee. r FUIE Thirty-ninth Congress is remarkable for having run its entire career with the constant opposition of the Exec- utive obstructing its progress. In all representative gov- ernments, a contest between the executive and the legislative branches of the government has sooner or later arisen, which has invariably ended in the defeat of the former. The hopeless- ness of the contest on the part of the executive, and the perti- nacity with which it has been waged, have given it a mock- hcroic character. During the months which intervened between the death of Abraham Lincoln and the assembling of Congress, Andrew John- son had ample time to preoccupy the field and intrench himself against what he termed a coordinate branch '• hanging on the vorg< of the < Government. " In June, 1865, del< from the South were first admitted to private interview- with the President. On the 17th of June he issued his proclamation providing for the restoration of civil government in Georgia and Alabama, in which he excludes negroes from the category of loyal citizens entitled to vote. The ['resident soon after proceeded to appoint provisional governors for the Southern States — a step which was viewed with joy by the late rebels, and sorrow by the Union men of the North. The character of these appointment- may be -ecu in a sentiment 36 56 j Till-: nil in j •-. \ v. \ th < ■<>. \ uttered by Governor Perry soon after hi- elevation to office: "There i- not now in the Southern States," -aid he, "any one who feels more bitterly the humiliation and degradation of eoine back into the Union than I do.'* Governor Perry saved liim- Lf from dismissal by assuring the people that the death of Mr. Lincoln was uo loss to the South, while he bad every hope thai Mr. Johnson, an old slaveholding Democrat, would be an ad- vantage. In Alabama, under the provisional government established by Mr. Johnson, the convention prohibited negroes from testifying in the courts. Rebels throughout the South at once began to make their arrangements for taking part in the government. In November, Governor Perry made a public demand that when Congress met the Clerk of the House should place on the- roll the names of representatives from the rebel States. When South Carolina hesitated to adopt the Constituti< Amendment abolishing slavery, President Johnson assured the Governor that the clause giving Congress the power to enforce it by appropriate legislation really limited congressional control over the negro question. Alter this assurance, South < 'arolina pted the Constitutional Amendment. In August and September, 1865, Democratic conventions in- dorsed the President's policy, and Democratic papers began to praise him. Republicans were unwilling to believe that they had Inch deserted, and hoped that alter the assembling of Con- ss all differences would disappear. The message <>f the President, read at the opening of the Thirty-ninth Congress, placed him in direct opposition to the leaders of the Republican party, and at variance with his own policy. •" A concession of the elective franchise," said lie, " to the freedmen, 1>\ act of the President of the United States, must have been extended to all colored men, wherever found, and must have established a change of suffrage in the Northern, Middle, and Western States, not less than in the Southern and South- western." Every one could see that the Presidenl possessed a- much power to admit the black man to the righl of suffrage in the rebel States a- to appoint provisional governors over them. While Congress was in -••.--ion, and actuall) employed in leg- islating for the restoration of the rebel States, Mr. Johnson sub- THE PRESIDENT .!.Y1> CONGRESS. 563 stantially declared that Congress had no control over the subject, by removing the provisional governor of Alabama, and handing the State Government over to the officers elected by the pe , le. The Senate having requested information from the Presid< as to the condition of the rebel States, the President, on the 20th of December, sent in a message which Mr. Sumner characterized as an attempt to "whitewash" the unhappy condition of the rebel Smtes. The message of the President was accompanied by reports from General Grant and General Schurz, in which Con gress found evidence that the late rebels had little sense of na- tional obligation, and were chiefly anxious to regain politic ! power, and compensate themselves for the loss of slavery by keeping the negroes in abject servitude. The passage of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, by a large ma- jority in Congress, and its veto by the President, presents the next phase in the contest. To Republicans the most alarming feature in the Veto Message was the evidence it gave that the President was ready at once to give to traitors who had fought fiercely for four years to destroy the Union an equal voice with loyal men in determining the terms of its reconstruction. In this instance the President prevailed. The bill failed to pass over the veto, from the fact that six Senators — Dixon, D< little, Morgan, Norton, Stewart, and Van Winkl* — who had voted for the bill, now sided with the President. This was the first and last triumph of the President. Two days after, on the 22d of February, the President greatly damaged his cause by denouncing a Senator and a Represent- ative, and using the slang of the stump against the Secretary of the Senate in the midst of an uproarious Washington mob. The people were mortified that the Executive of the nation should have committed so serious an indiscretion. The incident received notice in Congress in a humorous speech of Thaddeus Stevens, who declared that the alleged speech could never have been delivered; that it was "a part of the cunning contrivance of the copperhead party, who have been persecuting our President;" that it was "one of the grandest hoaxes evei perpetrated." Congress, now aware that it must achieve its greatest works of legislation over the obstructing veto of the President, moved for- ward with caution and deliberation. Every measure was well 56 Till'. Tim;T)--.\ rrxTH CO.A wei hi I carefully matured, since, in order to win ; ' ■ to tL' of a triumphant majority in Congress and the country, must be as free as possible from all objection Impartial sutt'rac provided in the District fColum 5ui frage Bill, bei ig a subject upon which the people had not vet spo - iate determined that it would be : to risk the uncertainty of passing the measure over the inevitable veto until the people should have an opportunity of speaking at : l>allot-box . The President applied his veto to the Civil Bill and t\s> I 'dinen's Bureau Bill, l>nt :i majority of more than the requisite two-thirds placed these measures among the laws of the land, hi the House presentatives, Mr 1 was the only Republican member who voted to - the veto uf the Civil Rights Bill. The temptation to be friends of the IV - ident, in order to aid him in tli<' distribution of . a very great with members of Congrreas, and the wonder is that - many were able to reject it all, and adhere to principles against which the Executive brought to bear all his power of opposition. On the adjournment of Congress in duly, at thi * f the fir.-f session, the contest was -till continued, though in anoth arena. Members of ( 'ongress went to their several districts, sub- mitted their doings ir constituents, and took council of the people, The President also traversed the States from the Atlan- tic t'> the Mississippi. He made numerous spe - and endeav- ored to popularize his policy. The people gave their verdict at the ballot-box in favor of Congress. The reelection of Congress was the rejection of President. The ruin of the President's fortunes was shared b) his followers. No gentleman ever entered the Housi of Repre- itatives with more eclat than that with which Mr. Raymond took Id- seat as a member of the Thirty-ninth Congi -. but his nstituents did not see proper to elect him for a second term. Delano and Stillwell, of the West, were left at home. Cowan. in the Senate, elected -i\ years before as a Republican, was super- seded, and Doolittle was instructed by his legislature to resign. The message of the President at the openh ; rod don displayed no disposition to yield to fch< to Con- He declared to a State delegation that wai him that lie was too old to learn. THE PRESIDENT AMD CONGRESS. One of the first acts of Congress after reassembling was to accept, the sanction of the people for impartial suffrage, and pass the District Suffrage Bill over the President's veto. The Presi- dent deemed it due to his consistency to return bills, with his "objections thereto in writing," to the very last, Among the last doings of the Thirty-ninth Congress was the passage of theTenure- of-offioe Bill and the Military Reconstruction Bill over vetoes. In humiliating contrast with the circumstances one year before, when the veto of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill prevailed, the vein of the Military Reconstruction Bill had hut ten supporters in the Senate. The following is a complete list of the hills vetoed by the President during the Thirty-ninth Congress, and of the hills which were passed over the veto, and those which became i ■- without the President's signature: First Session— To enlarge the powers of tin- Freedmen's Bureau; vetoed February 19, 1866. To protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and furnish the mean 1 -; of their vindication; vetoed; and passed, April 9, 1866, over veto. For the admission of the State of Colorado into the Union; vetoed May, 1866. To enable the Montana and New York Iron Mining and Manufacturing Company to purchase a certain amount of the public lands not now in mar- ket; vetoed June. 1866. To continue in force and to amend an act entitled "an act to establish a bureau tor the relief of freedmen and refugees, and for other purpos* .■• ed; passed, July 16, 1866, over veto. For the admission of the State of Nebraska into the Union; not signed; failed through the adjournment of Congress. Second Session. — To regulate the elective franchise in the Distri t Co- lumbia; vetoed; passed, January 8, 1867, over veto. To admit: of Colorado into the Union; vetoed January 18, L867 For the admission of the State of Nebraska into the Union; vel ■ I I, February 9, 1867, over veto. To provide for the more efficient government <>( the insurrectionary - vetoe 1. passed, March -2, L867, over To regulate the tenure of office - ; . March 2, 1867, >•■ Bills which, became laws without the Pres re, the const limit of ten days having expired without th m: To repeal section 13 of "an act to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate the property of rebels, and for other pur- poses," approved July 17, L862; became a law January 22, 1867. :> THE Till in )--.\l\Tii COJ\ VS. Ti the franchise in the T United im? 1 iiarj the duties uf the Clerk of I : nization - ■. and for other pur - ruarj To i itled " it 1 1 act to restrict tin- jui C urt of Claims, and to provid rment of certain demands for quartermasb re's id subsistence supplies furnished to the army of the Unil - ■ became a law February 22, I 367 tion. — Vetoes, I": pocl toes, 1; la s sustain I I became laws without signature, I - President Johnson proceeded in his career of opposition the legislative branch of the Government, the conviction fasti upon the minds of some that he was guilty of crimes rendering liim liable to impeachment. On the 7th of January, L867, Hen. James M. A.shley, of* Ohio, brought before the House of Repre- sentatives articles of impeachment, as follows: "I ' lent and acting President of the • s, of high crimes ;in • lias corruptly used tl ■■ il he has corruptly di "In thai he lias corruptly interfered in el serious, and committed acts which, i mplation of the Coi I ri, are high crimes and misdemeanors; 'i rhat the Committee on the Judiciary be, and thej [uire into the official conduct of And [ c United States, discharging th -s and duties of the offic i ! • o!' the Unil id. Si ind to report to this House whether, in their said Andrew Johns m, while in said office, ha <'•■ ~ id or calculated I hrow, subvei rrupt th : States, o tment or office thereof; and i "indrew J linson hi ' any act, <>r lias conspii i with which, in contei the Constitul h crimed lemi anors, reqniring the inti n of the and thai said committee have power to Bend - :tnd nd i" administi r th i witi This resolution was adopted b\ a vote of one hundred and ■ thirty-eight. r the close of the session, die < lomraittee on tin Judicial having in charge the question of impeachment, made .', report. THE PRESIDENT AND CONGBESS 567 The condition in which the subject was left by the Thirty-ninth Congress will be seen from the following extract: "The duty imposed upon the committee by this action of the House of the highest and gravest character. No committee, during the entire his- tory of the Government, has ever been charged with a more important trust. The responsibility which it imposed was of oppressive weight and of m unpleasant nature Gladly would tin mmittee have escaped from the arduous labor imposed upon it by the resolution of the House; but once imposed, prompt, deliberate, and faithful action, with a view to correct results became its duty, and to tin- end it has directed it- efforts. "Soon after the adoption of the resolution by the House, the Hon. James M. .\-ii]r\ communicated to the committee, in support of hi-- charges against the President id' the United Stat.-, such facts as were in his possession, ami tiir investigation was proceeded with, and has been continued almost without .1 day's interruption. A large Dumber of witnesses have been examined, many documents collected, and every thing done which could !"• dune to reach a conclusion of the case. But the investigation covers a broad field, (braces many novel, interesting, and important questions, and involves a multitude of facts, while must of the witnesses are distant from the capital, owing to which, the committee, in view of the magnitude of tin' inter. involved in its action, has not been aide to conclude its labors, and is not. therefore, prepared to submit a definite and dual report. If the investigation had even approached compli teness, tie' committee would not feel authorized to present the result to the House at this late period of the session, unles the charge had been so entirely negatived as to admit of no discussion which, in the opinion id' the committee, is not the ease. Certainly, no affirm- ative report eould be properly considered in the expiring hours of this ( !ongress. "The committee, not having fully investigated all the charges preferred against the President of the United States, it i< deemed inexpedient to sub- mit any conclusion beyond the statement that sufficient testimony has been brought to it- notice to justify and demand a further prosecution of the investigation. "The testimony which the committee has taken will pass into the custody of the Clerk of the House, and can go into the hand- id' such committee as may be charged with the duty of bringing this investigation to a close, so that the labor expended upon it may not have Keen in vain. ■•The committee regrets its inability definitely to dispose of tin- important subject committed to its charge, and presents this report for i : - own justifica- tion, and for the additional purpose of notifying the succei Congress of the incompleteness of its labors, and that they should he complet With the acceptance of this report, the impeachment was at an end so (hi- as the action <>t' the Thirty-ninth Congress was con- cerned. The subject was handed over to ;' sideration of the Fortieth Congres Ill /•; 7 II I R TI'-A 7. \ 7 // ( ' >. \ 'I i U ESS. CHAPTER XXV. personal. ssted Seats — Mr. Stockton vi . Himself- — New Jersey's loss of two Senators — Losses ok Vermont — Suicide of James II I. Death in the House — General Scott — Lincoln's Eulogy and Statue — Mr. Sumner on Fine Arts in the Capitol — Censure of Mr. Chanli Petition for the expulsion of Garret Davl — Grinnell assaulted v.\ Rousseai Tin: Action of the House — Leader of the Hoi se. \ I A.TTERS of interest relating to the, members of the Thirtv- ,yl ninth Congress remain to be noticed. Some names of mem- bers appear in the opening scenes of Congress which were substituted by others before the close. This was occasioned partly through successful contests for seats by persons who, after an in- ion of their claims, were declared to have been legally (1, lint failed, through fraud or mistake, to receive their cre- dentials. The right of Mr. Voorhecs, of Indiana, to a scat in the Thirty-ninth Congress was ted by Henry P. Washburn. The testimony in this case was laid before the Committee on Elections early in tin- session, and after patient hearing of the parties ami careful consideration of the subject, the committee reported in favor of Mr. Washburn and unseated .Mr. Voorl The seal in Congress taken at the opening of the session b> James Brooks, of New York, was decided by the committee, after deration of the chains of t lie contestant, to belong to William K. Dodffe, a merchant of New York city. The righl of John P. Stockt >n, of New Jersey, to a seal in tiie Senate haying been disputed on account of irregularity in hi- el letion, the Senate came to a vote on the question, after considerable discussion, on the -'■'><{ of March, ism;. Mi-. Stock- ton was declared entitled to his place by the close vote of -'2 i< 21, he giving the decisive vote in favor of himself. There arose PERSOjYAL. 569 a very exciting debate as to tbe right of a Senator to vote for himself under such circumstances. Mr. Stockton finally yielded to the arguments against his right to sit in judgment on his own case, and he was unseated March -27th by a vote of 22 to 21. For a time the seat thus vacated, to which New Jersey was en- titled in the Senate', remained unoccupied on account of the re- fusal of the Republican Speaker of the New Jersey Senate to give his vote in favor of the nominee of the Union caucus, Mr. Cattell. On account of the nearly equal balance of the partii . the choice was long deterred, but eventually made in favor of Mr. Cattell. The other seat held by New Jersey in the Senate was. practically vacant for a considerable time on account of the ill- ness of its incumbent, Mr. William Wright, who consequently resigned and eventually died before the expiration of the Thirty- ninth Congress. Other seats in Congress were vacated by death. Of all the States, Vermont suffered most severely in this respect. A part of the proceedings of the Thirty-ninth Congress consists of fune- ral addresses and eulogies upon Judge Collamer, a distinguished Senator from Vermont, whose term of service, had he lived, would have expired with the close of this Congress. He died, lamented by the nation, on the 8th of November, 1865. Oi who took a prominent part in the funeral obsequies of Mr. Col- lamer was Solomon Foot, the surviving Senator from Vermont. A man termed, from his length of service, "the father of the Senate." long its presiding officer, of purest morals, incorruptible integrity, and faithful industry, he died universally lamented on the 28th of March, 1866. Mr. Foot's death created a profound impression, since it exhibited, in a most remarkable manner, the effect of Christianity in affording its possessor a happy close of life. The death of another Senator stands forth in striking eontrasl with that of Mr. Foot. On the first of July, 1866, Senat James II. Lane -hot himself at Leavenworth, Kansas. While on his way home from Washington, when at St. Louis, he hail intimated a determination to commit suicide. His friends watel him closely, and obtained possession of his pocket-knife lest he might use it for the fatal purpose. Mr. Lane having reached Leavenworth, two of hi- friend- invited him to ride with them on Sabbath afternoon. After getting into the carriage, he r>70 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGh ■ - ! desire to return to hi- room for his cane, refusing allow any one to go ti>r him. Mr. Lane having returned with his cj ii«-. they drove to the heights overlooking the <'iiv. lie entered cheerfully into the conversation, remarking upon the beauty of the city and landscape. ( m returning, they ■ \ to pass through a gate that separated two fields. < >ne of the itlemen alighted to open the gate. At the -nine time Mr. Line stepped down from the carriage, and, passing around be- hind it, said, "Good-by, gentlemen/ 5 and instantly discharged a pistol with its muzzle in his mouth. The hall passed oul at the p of his head, near the center of the skull, producing a fetal wound. The unhappy man lingered for a few days in a - unconsciousness and died. Thus ended the stirring, troubled life of one who as a politician had occupied no inconsiderable space in the public eye. A number of seats in the House of Representatives were va- cated by death. James Humphrey, an able and honored mem- • from New York, died in Brooklyn on the 16th of June, 1866. During the second session of the Thirty-ninth Con en two members of the House of Representatives were removed by d i'!i — Philip Johnson, of Pennsylvania, in his third term Coi ional service, and Henry Grider, of Kentucky, a veteran kvho, having served in Congress from 1843 to 1847, was more recently a member of the Thirty-seventh, Thirty-eighth. and Thirty-ninth Congresses. < '( was called upon to pay funeral honor- tit others than i;- members. The death of General Scott, so long the illustrious chief of the military establishment of the nation, was regarded with due solemnity and honor by Congress, who deputized a large committee to attend the funeral obs al Wesl Point. statue of the distinguished General was voted by < i>ngi lorn the public grounds of the national capitol. The name of Abraham Lincoln, ■ martyred Pres- ident, was always pronounced with profoundesl respeel and sin- env-t gratitude in the halls of Congress. Hi- birthday, February 12th, was celebrated by the adjournment of Congress, and such an assembly as the hall i f Representatives has rarely witnessed, hear a eulogy pronounced by Mr. Bancroft, the American An appropriation of ten thousand dollars was mad.' Miss Virginia Ream, to model a - PERSONAL. 571 of Abraham Lincoln. This proposition elicited an animated discussion, and was the occasion of a most interesting address by Mr. Sumner on Art in the Capitol. "Surely tins edifice," said he, "so beautiful and interesting, should not be opened to the experiment- of untried talent. Only the finished artist-, should he invited to its ornamentation. "Sir, I doubt if you consider enough the character of this edifice in which we are now assembled. Possessing the advan- tage of an incomparable situation, it is one of the first-cli - structures in the world. Surrounded by an amphitheater of hills, with the Potomac at its feet, it resembles the capitol in Rome, surrounded by the Alban hills, with the Tiber at its feet. But the situation Is grander than that of the Roman capitol. The edifice itself i- worthy of the situation. It has beauty of form and sublimity in proportions, even if it lacks originality in conception. In itself it is a work of art. It ought not to receive in th • way of ornamentation any thing which is not a work of art. Unhappily this rule has not always prevailed, or there would not be so few pictures and marbles aboui us worthy of the place they occupy. But had pictures and ordinary mar- hies should warn us against adding to their number." Perhaps i tigress in the history of the country presents fewer disagi sable incidents of a personal nature than this. The Democrats in Congress being in such a small minority as to be unable to do any thing effectual cither to impede or advance legislation, could only present their vain protests in words. Charing under the difficulties they encountered, it is not sur- prising that at times they used language so ill-timed and unpar- liamentary as to call forth the censure of the House. On one occasion, Mr. Chanler, of New York, submitted a resolution " the independent, patriotic, and constitutional course of tl ; esidenl of the United States, in seeking to pro- teet, by th' power, the rights of the people of this Union against the wicked and revolutionary acts of a few malignant and mischi - men meets with the approval of this House, and deserves the cordial support of all loyal citizens of the United She.-." for im.i j tin- resolution, the House voted to .ensure Mr. Chanler as having "attempted a gross insult to the House." Before the vote was taken, Mr. Chanler said: ■' If by my de- r>: : THE THIRTY-XIXTR COA fiance I could drive your party from this hull, i . dd do - it* by my vote 1 could crush you. I would do - ! put the whole party, with your leader, the gentleman from I svlvania [Mr. Si, ■vcii-j. into that political hell surrounded by bayonets referred to by him in his argument on Thursday la* ln the Senate a petition was presented from is of N York praying that Garret Davis In- expelled fi i § a and, "with other traitors, held to answer I ... for his crime, since he stood in the attitude of an avowed enemy or' the Government" — since he had made the deel; r in refi euce to the Civil Rights Bill "that if the lull should beconu law, hi- should feel compelled to regard himself as a the Government, and to work for its overthrow." "It i- true," replied Mi'. Davis, ••that I. used in substance the words that arc imputed to nie in that petiti but, as a part of their context, 1 used a great many more. A- iple of garbling, the petition remind- me of a specim . d I heard when 1 was a young man. It was to this effect: 'The Bil teaches "thai there is no God."' When those in connection with the context, the passage read in the- term-: 'The fool hath -aid in his heart that tl God.' Thai specimen of the Bible was about as fair ..- t garbled !eineiit is of what I said upon the matter to . it r< fers." The mosl serious subject coining up for tin sure of I lou-e was an assault made by Mr. Rousseau, Kcntuck upon Mr. Grinnell, of Iowa. In many of it- u - this incident resembles the "affairs" of a personal • ter which re of frcquenl occurrence when Southern m< were i,i Congress before the war. In February, 1866, M ! isseau, in the course of a speech on the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, made the remark, " It' you intend to arresl white p a the ■ partt statement of negroes, and hold them to sui uven- ience for trial, and fine and imprison them, then 1 say that i oppose you; ami if you should so arrest and puni . 1 would kill you when you set me at liberty." To this Mr. Grinnell replied. "1 care not v. . n- tleman was lour year- iii the war on the Union wide or four vear- on the other -id", lmt 1 say thai he degraded his State and uttered a sentiment I thought unworthy of an ' officer PERSONAL. 578 when he said thai he would do such an act on the complaint of a negr igainst him." To this Mr. Rousseau, on the following day, replied: ''1 pro- uounc< tl - rtion that I have degraded my State and uttered : sentiment unworthy an American officer to be false, a vile >!ander, and unworthy to be uttered by any gentleman upon this Some i • - after this, Mr. Rousseau, in a public speech de- rcd in Ne\i York city, denounced Mr. Grinnell as a "pitiable politician from Iowa." In a speech made in the House on the Uth of June, Mr. Rousseau said of Mr. Grinnell: "I do not suppose that any member of this House believed a word he said. When a member can so far depart from what every body be- lieves he ought to know and doe.- know is the truth, it is a gradation, not to his State, but to himself." •• When any man/' replied Mr. Grinnell — " I care not whether ■ stand* six feet high, whether he wears buff and carries the air ot ertain bird that has a more than usual extremity of tail, wanting in the other extremity — says that he would not believe what 1 utter, I will say that I was never horn to stand under an imputation of that sort. "The gentleman begins courting sympathy by sustaining the President of the United States preparatory to his assault upon Now, sir, if he is a defender of the President of the United States, ill I have to say is, God save the President from such an incoherent, brainless defender, equal in valor in civil and in military life. His military record — who has read it? In what \' of history i< it found'.'" Mr. Rousseau determined to resent the insult which he con- ed to be offered him in this speech by inflicting a bodily chastisement upon Mr. Grinnell. On the morning of June 1 Ith. Mr. Rousseau informed a military friend of his purpose of flog- ging Mr. Grinnell. The person so informed procured a pistol and waited in the capitol until the close of the day'- session, in order to be present at the flogging and see "fair play." Two other friends of Mr. lion— can. also armed with pistols, happened to be present when the scene transpired. While Mr. Grinnell was passing from the House through the east portico of the cap- itol, he was by Mr. Rousseau, who. in an excited manner, THE Till l;T)'-.Yl.XT!l COXGIi said, " I have waited tour clays for an apology for words spoki here upon this floor." •• What of that?" asked Mr. Grinnell. •• I will teach you what of that," said Mr. Roiu • then proceeded to strike Mr. Grinnell about the hea . - with a rattan, stopping occasionally to lecture him, and saying, "Now, \ i » 1 1 (1 — d puppy and poltroon, look at If." After receiving half a dozen blows, Mr. Grinnell exclaimed," I do n't want to hurt you." "I don't expert you to hurt me, you y which the Speaker was directed to publicly reprimand Mr. Rousseau was carried <>te of § I to •'!<>. There were not enough in favor of the motion to disap- prove of Mr. Grinnell's remarks to call the aye- and noes. Mr. Rousseau endeavored to evade the execution of the sending his resignation to the Governor of K< .v. i House declared that a member could not dissolve mnection with the body under such circumstances, without i < >.i the 21s1 of July, the execution of the order wa- th< House having been demanded, Mr. Rousseau appeared at the bar, when the Speaker said. "General Rousseau, the House of Representa- tives have declared you guilty of a violation of its rights and privileges in a premeditated personal assault upon a member for words spoken in debate. This condemnation they have placed on their journal, and have ordered that you shall be publicly rep- VERS0X.1L. 75 rimanded by the Speaker at the bar of the House. No words dt' mine can add to the force of this order, in obedience to which I now pronounce upon you its reprimand." Early in the second session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, an interesting case came up relating to the privileges and immuni- ties of a member of Congress. Charles V. Culver, Representa- tive of the Twentieth District of Pennsylvania, having been en- gaged very extensively in banking, made a failure in business. In June, 1866, during the session of Congress, one of his cred- itors caused his arrest upon a contract for the return of cer- tain bonds and notes alleged to have been lent to him, charg _ that the debt incurred thereby was fraudulently contracted by Culver. In default of required security, Mr. Culver was com- mitted to" jail, where he remained until the 18th of December. Mr. Culver claimed his immunity as a member of Congress, under the clause of the Constitution which provides that Senators and Representatives "shall in all cases, except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attend- ance at the sessions of their respective house.-, and in going and returning from the same." The judge decided that the ott'ense fell under the constitutional exception, and was to be re- garded as a "breach of the peace." From this remarkable de- cision an appeal was made to the House of Representatives itself, as "the highest court of the nation, and depository of it- supreme authority." The case was referred to the Judiciary Committee, who reported a resolution, unanimously adopted by the House, directing the Speaker to issue his warrant to the Ser- geant-at-Arms, commanding him to deliver forthwith Charles \ . Culver from the custody of the sheriif and jailor of Venango County, and make return to the House of the warrant, and manner in which he may have executed the same. The Ser- geant-at-Arms proceeded immediately to execute the order of the House, and in a short time the Speaker announced that Mr. Culver was unrestrained in his seat as a member ot the 1 hirty- ninth Congress. Among the numerous distinguished men who constituted the Thirty-ninth Congress, n ie towered so conspicuously above the rest as to be universally recognized and followed as the "leader." This title has been frequently applied to Thad- deus Stevens. He was in many respects the most prominent THE THIRTT-.XLYTE C Thirty-ninth Congress. His age, I iples <>t' the Republican party, his unco it, and In- r made him a cons - ml luential member <>f the House, but did uot caus i or implicitlv folio 1 - r. In - itive bodj . - so mai _ it and action, acknowledging do parliamentary i- remarkable that the \vh< _ i-lut i< m- it, but was an honor fairly earned and justly paid. pr< siding over the ? —a much -mailer number whi - the body — was illv per i by Mr. Foster. His remark- to tl i ,_ l'om the chair as Pr< and closii _ elve yeai-s as a meml body, were n iu- . and i sive. ijamin i". W a Sena; m Ohio," having b en d sident pro tempore of be, took the " lad and assumed his seat as \ T ic -;'■■• -idem Uni . S - without ostentation or remark. twelv k noo March 1. 1867, the Thirty-ninth . handing over its great to antry, and it- un I busin immediately came into life. BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF TI1K THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS [The numbers appended to the following sketches refer to preceding pages of the book.] JOHN l'». ALLEY was Lorn in Massachusetts, in 1817. He served an apprenticeship to a shoemaker, and afterward engaged extensively in the shoe and leather business in Linn. Ee became a member of the Massa- chusetts Senate in 1852. Since 1858 he has been a Representative in Congress WILLIAM B. ALLISON was born in Ohio, in 1829. He was admitted to the bar in 1851, and practiced in Ohio until 1857, when he removed to Dubuque, Iowa, He was a delegate to the Chicago Convention in 1860. In 1862 he was elected a Representative from Iowa to the Thirty-ninth ( Jongress — 527. OAKES AMES was born in 1804. He was for two years a member of the Executive Council of Massachusetts. He has devoted most of his life to business of manufacturing, taking hut little public part in politics. He was a member of the Thirty-eighth Congress, and appeared for his second term at tb' opening of the Thirty-ninth Congress. — 31. SYDENHAM E. ANCONA was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, November 20, 1*24. Having removed to Berks County, he was for several irs connected with the Reading Railroad Company. In I860 he was •ted a Representative to the Thirty-seventh Congress, ami was sul quently returned to the Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Coi IRGE W. ANDERSON was born in Tennessee, in L832. II" ad. the profession of the law. and in 1853 settled in Missouri. In 1858 he was elected to the Stat.- Legislature. He was. in 1862, elected a State Senator, and held this position until lie was chosen a Repi nl itive from Missouri to the Thirty-ninth Congress. ' :57 (577) 578 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS HENRY B. ANTHONY ia of Quaker ancestry. He was born in L815, and graduated at Brown University in 1833 In l v: > he becau litor of the "Providence Journal." He was twice Governor of Rhode Island. He took lii- Beat as United Stat.-- Senator in L859, and has been elected for a ad term, which ends in 1871. — 36, 37, I s - SAMUEL M. ARNELL, a lawyer by profession, was elected a Repn ative from Tennessee to the Thirty-ninth Congress, but was not admitted to hi- seat until near the close of the first session of the Thirty-ninth Congress. DELOS R. ASHLEY studied law in Michigan, whence he removed to California in L849. Here he held successively the offices of District Attor- ney, member of the State Legislature, and State Treasurer, until 1864, when he removed to Nevada, and was elected from that State a member of the Thirty-ninth Congress JAMES M. ASHLEY was born in Pennsylvania, November 14. 182-1 His youth was spent on Ohio and Mississippi boats, and in a printing-office. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1849, but went into the busi- ness of boat-building and was connected with the press. He subsequently ■went into the wholesale drug business in Toledo. He was elected a Repre- sentative from Ohio to the Thirty-sixth Congress, and has been a member of seding Congress to the present time. — 503, 513, 515, 525, 566. JEHU BAKER was horn in Kentucky, November 4, 1822. He adopted the profession of law. and having settled in Illinois, he was elected a Repre- itive from that State to the Thirty-ninth Congress.— 340, 506. JOHN D. BALDWIN was born in Connecticut, in 1810, and graduated at Yale College. Having studied law and theology, and published a volume of poems, he became connected with the press, first in Hartford and then in Boston, where he was editor of the "Daily Commonwealth." He subse- quently 1 ame proprietor of the " Worcester Spy." In 1862 he was ele n member of the Thirty-eighth Congress, and reelected to the Thirty-ninth. NATHANIEL P. HANKS was born in Massachusetts, in 1816. lie was iir-t a newspaper editor, and subsequently studied law. He was elected a member of the Legislature of Massachusetts in l s 1v Prom 1853 to l s ">7 he served as a Representative in Congress. During his second term in Con- gress he held the office of Speaker of the House with unsurpassed accepta- bility and success. In L857 he was deeted Governor of Massachusetts, and held the office for three successive term- At the breaking out of the war of L861 he entered the army as Major-general i>f Volunteers, and did much effective service for the country. At the close of the war he was elected a member of the Thirty-ninth Congress.— 25, 145, 524, 5 ABRAHAM A BARKER was born in Lovell, Maine. March 30, L816. lie received a common-school education, and engaged in agricultural pur- suits. He was an earnest advocate of temperance and antislavery. In 1 V M BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 57!) he removed to Pennsylvania, and engaged in the lumber and mercantile business. He was a delegate to the Chicago Convention in I860, and was elected a Representative to the Thirty-ninth Congress From Pennsylvania PORTUS BAXTER was born in Bennington, Vermont. He has been engaged in mercantile and agricultural pursuits. He was elected . Repre- sentative from his native State to the Thirty-seventh Congress, and subse- quently served in the Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses. FERNANDO C. BEAMAN was horn in Vermont, June 28, 1814. He removed in boyhood to New York, and studied law in Rochester. in 1" I he settled in Michigan, where he served the people as Prosecuting Attorney, Probate Judge, and Presidential Elector. He has been a Representative in Congress from Michigan since I860. — 447. JOHN F. BENJAMIN was born in Cicero, New York, January 23, 1817. In 1848 he settled in Missouri in the practice of law. In 1851 and 1852 he served in the Legislature of that State. He entered the Missouri cavalry as a private in L861, and after some service became a Lieutenant-colonel, lie was elected a Representative from Missouri to the Thirty-ninth Congress. — - TENNIS (4. BERGEN was born in 1806. Before embarking in pol he was a surveyor and horticulturist. He was a member of the Charleston and Baltimore Conventions in 1860, and first took his seat as a member of Congress in 1865. JOHN BIDWELL was born in Chautauque County, New York, in 1819; emigrated to Pennsylvania and subsequently to Ohio, where he taught, sehi >i. He followed the same employment for two years in Missouri. In 1841 be emigrated to California, and was the first man to find gold on Feather River in 1848. He served in the Mexican war. In 1849 he was a member of the State Constitutional Convention, and was elected to the State Senate In 1864 he was elected a. Representative from California to the Thirty-ninth Congress. — 31. JOHN A. BINGHAM was born in Pennsylvania, in 1815. He studied law in Ohio, and was admitted to the bar in 1849. In L854 lie was elected a Representative to Congress from Ohio, and was a member, by su< sessive reflections, until 1864, when he was appointed a Judge-advocate in the army. He was reelected to the Thirty-ninth Congress.— 25, 67, 237, 357, 434, 448, 474, 475, 505, 520, 537. JAMES G. BLAINE was born in Pennsylvania in 1830; and having graduated at Washington College, he removed to Maine, and became editor of the "Portland Advertiser." After bavin- served four years in the Maine Legislature, he was elected to the Thirty-eighth Congressj and subsequently reelected to the Thirty-ninth.—:]:;:!, 437, 527, 528, 536. HENRY T. BLOW was born in Virginia, July 15, 1817. He removed to Missouri in 1830, and devoted himself to the lead and drug business. He 580 THE THIRTY-NINTH COJVGEF& was lour years n member of the State Senate In 186] he was appointed Minister to Venezuela, but resigned the position before the expiration of a r. In 1862 he icted.a Representative to Congress from Missouri, and r< elected in 1 86 t GEORGE S BOl I'WELL was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1818. II ■ - in the itile busi clerk and proprietor for twenty years, and subsequently studied law. He served seven years in the State Legisla- ture, and was Governor of Massachusetts in L851 and 1852. He was elected :. Representative in Congress from Massachusetts in 1 v "~ and was ted to the Thirty-ninth Congress.— 91, 442, 475, 526, 528, 5 BENJAMIN M BOYER was born in Montgomery ('.unity. Pennsylvania, in 1823 He graduated ar the Univerisity of Pennsylvania, and studied law. He was elected District Attorney for his native county in l x 4 s . In 1864 he was elected a member of the Thirty-ninth Congress. 54 I ] ALLEN A BRADFORD was born in Maine, in 1815. In 1841 he emi- grated tn Missouri, where he was admitted to the bar in 1843. 1 1 • - held the office of clerk of the Circuit Court for Atchinson County, and subsequently removed to [owa, where he was appointed Judge of the Sixth Judicial Circuit. Resigning this office in 1855, he went to Nebraska, and l ame a member of the Legislative Council. Having, in I860, settled in Colorado, he ■• appointed Judge of the Supreme Court for that Territory, and held this office until he was elected a delegate to the Thirty-ninth Congress from Colorado. AUGUSTUS BRANDAGEE was born in New London, Connecticut, in 1828, and graduated ar Yale College in 1849. After having graduated at the Vali" Law School in I S ">1. he embarked in law and politics. From I S ">1 to 1861 he was several times a member of the Connecticut Legislature He took his scar as a member of Congress in 1863. — ">I S . HENRY P. II BROMWELL was born in Baltimore, 1823. Having spent seven years of boyhood in Ohio, he went to Illinois in 1836, and came to the bar in 1853. He was subsequently an editor, Judge of a County Court, and Presidential Elector. In 1864 he was elected a Representative from Illinois ■ Thirty-ninth Congress. — 349. JAMES BROOKS was born in Portland, Main.', in I s !" When eleven years old he became a clei'k in a Btore. At sixteen he was a school-teacher, and at twenty-one [graduated at Waterville College. After several years spent in traveling and writing l<-tt. elected to the Legislature ol Maine. In 1836 he established the "New York Daily Express," of which he has since been chief editor. In I s 17 he was elected to the General Assembly of New York In 1849, and again in 1851, he was elected a Representative in Congress. In 1863 he was returned to Congress. In December, 1865, he took his place as a member of the Thirtj ninth Con- gress but held it onlj until the 6th of April following, his seat having been ill\ contested by William E Dodge. — 17,20,25 BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 581 JOHN M. BROOMALL was born in Upper Chichester, Pennsylvania, in ]SI(). Having received a common-school education, he devoted himself to legal studies and pursuits. In 1861 he was a Presidential Elector. In 1862 he was elected to represent the seventh Pennsylvania district in Congress, and two years later was reelected to the Thirty-ninth Congress. — 243, 360, 439, 504. B. GRATZ BROWN was hum in Kentucky, May 28, L826. Having grad- uated at Vali" College, and studied law, he settled at St. Louis, Missouri, where he edited the "Missouri Democrat" from L854 to 1859, and was a member of the State Legislature, lie raised a regiment at the breaking oul of the war, which he commanded during its term of service. He was among the foremost champions of freedom in Missouri, and was elected a Senator in Congress From that State for the term commencing in L863 and ending in L867. — 285, 477, 493. CHARLES R. BUCKALEW was horn in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, in L821. lie was admitted to practice law iu 1843, and was elected Prose- cuting Attorney for his native county iu 1845. In 1850 he was elected a Senator in the State Legislature, which office he held for a series of years. In 1854 he was a Commissioner to exchange the ratification of a treaty with Paraguay. He was a Presidential Elector in 1856, and Chairman of the State Democratic Committee in 1857. He was appointed by President Buchanan Minister Resident to Ecquador in 1858, and held the position until 1861. lie was, in 1863, elected United States Senator from Pennsylvania, for the term ending 1869.— 401, 494, 532. RALPH P. BUCKLAND was horn in Massachusetts, in 1812, and was re- moved the same year to Ohio. He was admitted to the bar in 1837. He served lour years in the Ohio Senate. In L861 he was appointed Colonel of the 72d Ohio Infantry, and after a years service was made a Brigadier-gen- eral. While absent in the field he was elected a Representative from Ohio to the Thirty-ninth Congress. HEZEKIAH S. IU'XDV was born in Marietta, Ohio, August 15, 1-17. From 1835 to 1S46 he was engaged in mercantile pursuits, and subsequently turned his attention to farming and the furnace business. He served several years in the Ohio Legislature, and was a Presidential Elector in 1860. He was, in 1864, elected a member of the Thirty-ninth Congress. WALTER A. BURLEIGH was a Delegate from Dakotah to the Thirty- ninth Congress. WILLIAM I!. CAMPBELL was born in Tennessee, and served as a cap- tain of volunteers in the Florida war. Having served in the State Legislature, he was a Representative in Congress from I ^ ;7 to 1843. He served a- a colonel in the Mexican war, and was Governor of Tei ssee from 1851 to 1853. He was elected a Representative from Tennessee to the Thirty-ninth Congress, but with his colleagues was not admitted to a seat until near the (dose of the first session. THE THIRTY-NIJfTR CONGRE& ALEXANDER G. CATTELL. A Senator in Congress from New Jet - -669. ZACHARIAH CHANDLER • is born in New Bampshire, December 10, 181 Be has been extensively engaged in mercantile and banking pursu ]i i; . removed to Michigan, he was Mayor of Detroit in 1851, and was in 1852 an unsuccessful candidate for Governor. Betook his seat in theThirty- - sue ding General Cass as Senator from Michigan. In 18 he was reelected for the term ending 1869. — -~i. 397. HN W CBANLER was born in the city of New V-rk. in 1826. In 1859 and I860, he was a member of the General Assembly of New ^ ork. In 1863 In- first took hi- seat as a member of Congress, and entered upon hia second term December, 1865. — 64, 156, 337, 571. .1. FRANCISCO CBAVES was born in New Mexico, in 1833. lb' Btudied in.- . ■ in New York, and subsequently devoted several years t.> mercantile pursuits and cattle-raising. In L86J he entered tin' military Bervice a- Major the 1st New Mexico Infantry, and after seeing much active service, mustered out as Lieutenant-colonel. In 1865 he was elected a Del rom New Mexico to the Thirty-ninth Congress DANIEL CLARK was born in L809, and graduated at Dartmouth Col- lege in 1834. tie first appeared in public life as a member of the New 1 lamp- shirr Legislature in 1842. Be was elected United States Senator in 1857, and again in 1861. At the close >>i' the first session of the Thirty-ninth < gress, having been appointed U. S. District Judge for New Bampshire, he I his seat in the Senate.— 201, 38? IT:'. READER VV. CLARKE was born in Ohio, May 18, 1812. IK- learned the if a printer, ami became a lawyer in 1836. IK- served in the Ohio - • lire, and was clerk of tin 1 county court for a number of years. In 1^>4 he was elected a Representative from Ohio to the Thirty-ninth Congress - >\KY CLARKE was born in Massachusetts October 16, 1821, and the profession of an editor. In 1858 he emigrated to Kansas, and member of the State Legislature in 1862. Entering the army, he mi i captain of volunteers, ami Assistant Provost-marshal General for Kan? s Nebraska, Colorado, ami Dakotah In 1864 he \> ted the Repri *entative Eroni Kansas to the Thirty-ninth Congress AM ' SA COHH was born in Illinois, in 1823, and emigrated to Wisconsin in l-i'J Be served a> a private in tin' Mexican war. and at til of ■ he commenced the practice ■>!' law. lie served successively as :i ' Utorney, State Senator, and Adjutant-general of V\ Be v. iquently a member of the State Li ;islaturc, and v * ker. ||, . done! "I' the 5th Wisconsin regiment in the war. and was elected tentative Gram Wig ghth and Tl ' on- BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 583 ALEXANDER II. COFFROTH was born in Somerset, Pennsylvania, May 18. 1828. lit- commenced the practice of law in 1851. He was a delegate to tin 1 Charleston Convention in I860, and was elected a Representative to the Thirty-eighth Congress, lie appeared as a member of the Thirty-ninth Con- gress, but his seal was successfully contested bv William 11. Koontz. SCHUYLER COLFAX was born in New York City, March 23, 1823. He became a printer, and settled in Indiana 1836. He was for many years editor and publisher of the "South Bend Register." In 1850 he was a member of the Indiana Constitutional Convention. He was a delegate and secretary of the Whig National Conventions of 1M X and 1 s -"»_. He was elected a Repre- sentative from Indiana to the Thirty-fourth Congress, and has been a member by reelection of each su< eding Congress, lit- was elected Sneaker tit' the Thirty-eighth Congress, and was reelected to the same office in the Thirty- ninth and Fortieth Congresses. — II. 20. ROSCOE CONKLING, son of Alfred Conkling, a member of the Seven- teenth Congress, was born at Albany, in 1828. Having entered the profession of law. he successively held the offices of District Attorney for Oneida County and Mayor of Utica. In 1859 he took his seat as a member of the Thirty- sixth Congress, and remained a Representative in Congress by successive reflections until the 4th of -March. 1867, when he entered the United States Senate as the successor of Ira Harris. — 328, 348, 481, 513. JOHN CONNESS was born in Ireland, in 1822, and came to America when thirteen years of age. He was an early emigrant to California, where he engaged in mercantile and mining pursuits. In 1852 he was elected to the State Legislature, and served in that capacity for a series of years. la 1863 he was elected United States Senator from California for the term end- ing in 1869. — 340. BURTON C. COOK was born in New York, in 1^1 ( .». He became a law- yer and settled in Illinois, where he served eight years in the State Senate. In 1804 he was elected a Representative from Illinois to the Thirty-ninth i longress. — 223, 350. EDWARD COOPER is a lawyr by profession, and was. ' m 1865, eleete 1 a Representative from Tennessee to the Thirty-ninth Congress, but was not admitted until near the close of the first session. EDGAR COWAN was born in Westmoreland County. Pennsylvania, ia 1815. lie graduated at Franklin College, Ohio, in 1839. Having been at different times clerk, boat-builder, scl l-master, and student of medicine, he studied law, and practiced the profession until 1861, when he was elected I uited States Senator from Pennsylvania for the ter ading l s <'7. — 96, 100, L33, 135, 195, 216, 273, 429, 487, 489, 496. AAKON U. CRAGIN was born in Weston, Vermont, in 1821. Having studied law. he removed, in 1847. to New Hampshire and practiced his }>rt> 58 Tin: Tiiiirry-M.YTii congress. in, From 1852 to 1855 he was a member of the New Hampshire L lature. Be was a Representative from New Hampshire in the Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth Congr< In 18 entered the Senate of the United Stat JOHN A .1. CRESWELL was born in Maryland, in 1828, graduated at Dickinson College in 1848, and was admitted to the bar in l s -">" He was successively a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, Assistant Adju- tant-general for the State, and a Representative in the Thirty-eighth Con< In 1865 he \ ii a United - Senator for the unexpired term of T. II Hicks, deceased. — I SHELBY M. CULLOMwas born in Kentucky, in 1829, and becam lawyer by profession. Having removed to Illinois, he became a member and Speaker of the .--rat'' Legislature. He entered Congress in 1865 as a Repre- sentative from Illinois. — 516. CHARLES V. CULVER was born in Logan, Ohio, in 1830. He set in Pennsylvania, and engaged extensively in business pursuits, and especially in banking. He was elected a Representative from Pennsylvania to the Thirty-ninth Congress. — 575. WILLIAM A DARLING was born in Newark, New Jersey, in l s 17 When quite young he went to New York City, and devoted himself to the wholesale mercantile business, first as clerk, ami afterward proprietor. In 1863 he was president of the Union and Republican organization of New York City. In 1864 he was elected a member of tin- Thirty-ninth Con- gress.- -81. GARRET DAVIS was born at Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, in 1801. He was admitted to the bar in 1823. He was elected to the State Legislature in from 1839 to l x 17 he was a Representative in Congress from Ken tucky. In L861 he became United States Senator, and in 1867 he entered upon his second term in the Senate.— 24, 136, 171, 199, 208, 243, 287, 287, 430, 460, 184, 193, 533, 572. THOMAS T. DAVIS was born at Middlebury, Vermont, in 1810, and graduated at Hamilton College in 1831. Having settled in Syracuse, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1833. Railroads, manufactures, and mining ha\ :cupied much of his attention. In 1862 he was el scted a member of the Thirty-eighth Congress, and entered upon his Becond term of Bervice at the opening <>r the Thirty-ninth Congress.— 6 HENRY L. DAWES was born in L816, and graduated at Vale College in tudied law, taught Bchool, and edited a paper. He w.i- several times from l N l N to 1853 member of the Massachusetts Legislature He held the office of District Attorney from 1853 until his election as a member of the Thirty-fifth Congress, He has I o a member of everj subsequent JO, 178. BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 5S5 ,!()I1N L. DAWSON was born at Uniontown, Pennsylvania, February 7, 1813. Eaving been educated at Washington College, be adopted the ]> sion of law. In 1845 he held the position of United States District Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. He was a member of the Thirty- second Congress and also of the Thirty-third. After a long absence from Congress, he was reelected in 1862 and again in 1864. — 144. 505. JOSEPH II. DEFREES was born in Tennessee, in 1812. His early y of business life were occupied in printing. He removed to Indiana, and be- came a merchant. Having held the office of Sheriff four years, he was in 1849 elected to the Lower House of the Indiana Legislature, and quently to the Senate. In 1864 he was elected a Representative from Indiana to the Thirty-ninth < !ongress. COLUMBUS DELANO was born in Vermont, in 1809, and removed to Ohio in 1817. He embarked in the profession of the law, but later in life \v.\< been employed in agriculture and banking. In 1844 he was elected a ineni- b . of the Twenty-ninth Congress, and twenty years subsequently was el> a Representative to the Thirty-ninth Congress. — 236, 539. HENRY C. DEMING was born in Connecticut. He graduated at Yale College in 1836, and at the Harvard Law School in 1838. lie had been a member of the Lower House and Senate of Connecticut, and for six Mayor of Hartford, when in 1861 be went into the war as Colonel of the 12th Connecticut regiment. He participated in the capture of New Orleans, and was Mayor of that city until 1863, when he returned to his native State, and was soon after elected a Representative in the Thirty-eighth Congress, and reelected in 1865. CHARLES DENISON was born in Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania, Janu- ary 23, 1818. He graduated at Dickinson College in 1829, and entered the profession of law. In 1862 he was elected a. Representative from Pennsyl- vania to the Thirty-eighth Congress, and was reelected in 1864. ARTHUR A. DENNY was born in Indiana, in 1 s^l>, and removed in boy- hood to Illinois. In 1851 he removed to Washington Territory, and was a member of the Territorial Legislature from is:,;; to 1861. lie held for four years the office of Register of the Land Office at Olympia, and was subse- quently elected a Delegate from Washington Territory to the Thirty-ninth < 'ongress. JAMES DIXON was born 1814, and graduated at William- College in 1834; practiced law, and was a member of the General Assembly of Connec- ticut a number of years. From 1845 to 1849 he was a I.' ntative in Congress, in 18o7 he was elected Senator, and subsequently re'e ected for a second term, which ends in 1869. — 4'2'-',, 195. NATHAN 1'" DIXON, BOD of a Senator of the same name who died at Washington in 1842, was bom in 1812, and graduated at Brown University 586 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. in I After attending the Law Schools at New Haven and Cambridge, h<- was admitted to the bar in 1837 From 1840 to 1849 he was a member of t!i<- Genera] Assembly of Rhode Island, and after having served in the Thirty- first Congress, was again elected v< the Legislature. In 1863 he was elected a Repn tive from Rhode Island to the Thirty-eighth I and en- tered upon his Becond Congressional term in 1865. WILLIAM E. DODGE was born at Hartford Connecticut, in 1819. Early in life he went to New York City, where he engaged actively in business ll<' was for many years at the head of one of the most extensive manufac- turing and importing establishments in the country. He was for many years President of the National Temperance Society, and has long l a a promi- nent promoter of benevolent enterprises in New York City. Having proved his right to the seat held by James Brooks, he was admitted a member of the Thirty-ninth Congress in the Bpring of 1866. — 511, 568 IGNATIUS DONNELLY was born in Philadelphia, in 1831. He Btudied law, and was admitted to the bar in \x'i'-',. Having emigrated to Minn. -seta in 1857, he was. two years after, elected Lieutenant-governor. In 1862 he was elected a Representative to Congress from Minnesota, and was reelected in 1864.— 145, 333, 507, 538, 553. JAMES R. DOOLITTLE was born al Hampton, New Fork, in 1815. He graduated at Geneva College in 1834, and adopted the profession of law. In 1851 he removed to Wisconsin, and was chosen judge of the first judicial circuit of that Star.' in 1853. II • was elected a United - - water from Wisconsin in 1857, and was reelected in 1863 for the term ending in l v iV.i — 285 1 18, 131, 456, 458, 460, 195, 501, 531, 5 I !, 541. Ji»! IX !•'. DRIGG9 was born at Kinderhook, N \ rk, in 1813. Having learned a mechanical business connected with building, in New York City, he was a master-mechanic until 1856, when he settled in East Saginaw, Mich- i He was two years a member of the Michigan Legislature, and in 1- v.a- ! a Representative from Michigan in < -. and reelected in 1*6-1 EBENEZER DUMONT was born at Vevay, Indiana, in 1814. 1!.' became r by profession, and was a member of the State Legislature in l v H ■ is n i nty treasurer from 1839 to 1845 He served in the Mexi- can war as n lieutenant-colonel, and was subsequently a member of the State Presidential Elector, and president of tin SI I Bank. On the tli" civil war he was appointed Colonel .'I* the 7th Indiana and subsequently promote I to the rank of Brigadier-general. !! iving been elected t.. Congress in 1802, he left t 1 1 « - field and t....k his >.Mt • tive from Indiana to the Thirty ■ ■ij>t | ! Congress He svas re- ed t.i the Thirty-ninth < long EPITR MM R, ECKLEY was born in Ohio, in 1812, and was admitted to He served - ■■ ira in tli - He had com- BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 587 mand, as Colonel, of the 26th and L8th Ohio regiments in the civil war. He resigned his position in the army in 1863 to enter upon his duties as Repre- sentative from <>hii> to the Thirty-eighth Congress He was returned to the succeeding Congress in 1865. — 147. GEORGE F. EDMUNDS was born in Vermont, February 1, 1828, ami was admitted to the bar in 1849. He served several years as member of the Vermont Legislature, of which he was Speaker, and subsequently was a mem- ber of the State Senate and presiding officer of that body. He was appointed to the vacancy in the United States Senate occasioned by the death of Solo- mon Foot, ami entered upon the duties of this position in April, 1866. — 559, 560. BENJAMIN EGGLESTON was horn at Corinth, New York, in 1816, and removed to Ohio in 1831. He gave his attention to commercial pursuits, and has been identified with many important public enterprises. He was for some years a member of the State Legislature, and was a Presidential Elec- tor in I860. He was, in 1864, elected a Representative from Ohio to the Thirty-ninth < longress. CHARLES A. ELDR1DGE was born at Bridgeport, Vermont, in 1821. He removed to New- York, where he was admitted to the bar in 1846. He I in Fond du bar. Wisconsin, in 1848. Having served two terms in the State Sen it •. he was. in 1862, elected a Representative from Wisconsin to the Thirty-eighth Congress, and two years after was reelected. — 242 355, 419, 441. 507, 539, 546. THOMAS I). ELIOT was born in Boston in 1808. Having graduated at Columbia College, Washington, in 1825, he entered the professsion of the law. He served in the Legislature of Massachusetts, and in 1855 was elected a Representative in Congress to lill an unexpired term. Alter a brief inter- val, he was elected a member of the Thirty-sixth and each succeeding Con- gress.— 95, 138, 295, 296, 306, 347, 443. JOHN F. FARNSWORTH was bom in Lower Canada. March 27th. 1820. He emigrated to Illinois and pursued the profession of law. He was a Rep- resentative from Illinois to the Thirty-tilth and Thirty-sixth Congr — es. In 1861 he entered the military service as colonel of volunteers. In 1862 and in 1864 he was reelected to Congress.- -61, 339, 448, 519, 537, JOHN II. FARQUHAR was horn in Maryland, in 1818, and removed to aa in 1833. He was first a civil engineer, and then a lawyer. He [y as Secretary of the Indiana Senate. Clerk of the Indiana House ol Re itives, and Presidential Elector in I860. In l^til he was commissi* • Captain in the L9th U. S. [nfantry, and served in that ca- pacity until 1864, when hi' was elected a Representative from Indiana to the Thirty-ninth < longress THOMAS W, FERRY was born at Mackinac, Michigan, in 1-27. His THE 111 i I: /)•-. \ 7. \ 77/ CONGRESS. business is that of a lumberman and banker. In i N ">" he was elected to the State Legislature, and in 1856 to the Michigan Senate. In 1864 he was elected to the Thirty-ninth Congress from Michig WILLIAM PITT FESSENDEN was born in New Hampshire, October 16, 1806. He graduated al Bowdoin College in 1823, and need the practice of law in Portland in l v i!7 He was several times a member of the State Legislature, and from 1841 to l s L; he was a Representative in I gress. In 1853 he was elected a United Stat.--; Senator from Main.-, and was I in 1859. In July, 1864, he was apj dent Lin ; iretary of the Treasury, but returned to th - ■•• after a few months' absence, having been reelected for the term ending in 1871. — 27, 42, 271, 224, 373, 377 194, 412. 419, 121, 432, 540. WILLIAM E. FINCK was born in Ohio in 1822. He was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-one. He was elected to the State Senate in 1851, and was a member of the Convention of \<>'2. which nominated Gen era] S r the Presidency. In 1862 he was elected a Representative from ohin to the Thirty-eighth Congress, and was reelected in 1864. — 137, 519. GEORGE G. FOGG was elected a Senator from New Hampshh the unexpired term of Daniel Clark, resigned. SOLOMON FOOT was born in 1802, and graduated at Middlebury Col- in 1826. Having devoted some years to teaching, he studied law, and admitted to the bar in 1831, He was for yeai's successively a member of the Legislature ami State Attorney. From 1843 to 1847 he was a I.' sentative in Congress. He was honored by his nal - ite by thr< lec- tions to the Senate of th.' United States, his Senatorial career beginning in 1851, and ending with his death. March 28th, 1866. — 253, 51 LA FAYETTE S. FOSTEB is a descendant of Mile. Standish. He was Lorn in 1806, ami graduated it Brown University in 1828. He comme the practice of law in 1831, and was a member of the General Assembly of Connecticut at intervals until l^'.l He took his seat in the United States Senate in 1855, and was reelected fur the term ending 1867. Hi' was cl President pro tern, of the Senate at th.' extra session of 1865, ami by the ele- vation '•!' Andrew Johnson to the Presidency became Acting \ ice I' sident of the I nited States.— 23, 137, 197 JOSEPH S FOWLER was in 181 1 a United Stal s Senator from Tennessee for the term ending in l s 7L but was not admitted to his seat un- til near the clo^e of the In- n of the Thirty-ninth ( ■ 178, FREDERICK T. FRELINGHUYSEN, a Senator in Congress from New Jersey. -492, 497. JAMES A. GARFIELD was born in Ohio, November 19, 1831, and grad- BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 589 uated at Williams College, Massachusetts, and was for some years principal of a flourishing seminary at Hiram. Ohio. In 1859 and I860 he was a mem- ber of the Ohio Senate. At the breaking out of the rebellion, he entered the army as Colonel of the 42d Ohio Volunteers, and was promoted suc- cessively to the rank of Brigadier-general and to that of Major-general of Volunteers. In 1862 he was elected a Representative from Ohio to the Thirty-eighth Congress, and reelected to the Thirty-ninth Congress. — 144, , ;S 540 524, 538, 553. ADAM J. GLOSSBRENNER was born at Hagerstown, Maryland, in L810. He was apprenticed at an early age to the printing business. When seven- teen years of age he journeyed westward, and became foreman in the office of the "Ohio Monitor.'' and afterward of the " Western Telegraph." In 1829 he returned to Pennsylvania and settled in York, and there puhlished the •• York Gazette." In 1849 he was elected Sergeant-at-arms of the House of Representatives for the Thirty-first Congress, and held the same office through the four following Congressional terms. In 1861 he was private secretary to President Buchanan. In 1864 he was elected a member of the Thirty- ninth Congress. CHARLES GOODYEAR was born in Schoharie County, New York, in 1805, and graduated at Union College in 1824. He studied law, and prac- ticed his profession until 1839, when he was elected to the New York Leg- islature. He entered Congress for the first time in 1845 and served one term. In 1852 he discontinued the practice of law and engaged in the business of banking. In l s, '»d he was elected a member of the Thirty- ninth Congress. HENRY GRIDER was horn in Kentucky, July 16, 1796. He was a pri- vate in the last war with England. 11" subsequently divided his attention between agriculture and law. In 1827 and 1831 he was elected to the Legis- lature of Kentucky, and in 1833 to the State Senate. As early as 1843 he was elected a Representative to Congress, and held the position until 1847. He was reelected to the Thirty-eeventh, Thirty-eighth, and Thirty-ninth Con- gresses. He died before the expiration of the term for which he was elected. — 117. JAMES W. GRIMES was horn in New Hampshire, October 16, 1816, and graduated at Dartmouth College in 1836. Having emigrated to Iowa, he was, in L838, elected to the first Territorial Legislature. From 1854 to 1858 he was Governor of Iowa. In 1859 he was elected a United State- Senator from Iowa, and in 1865 was reelected for the term ending in 1871. JOSIAH B. GRIKNELL was born in Vermont, in 1821. He received a collegiate and theological education. He went to Iowa in L855, and turned his attention to farming. Having l a four years a member of the State Senate, he was elected a Representative from Iowa to the Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses.— 70, 153, 507, 572. 590 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. JnllN .\ GRISWOLD was born in Rensselaer County, N> w York, in ] -~2-. He li.i- been engaged in the iron trade and in the ss of bank- ing. He was once Mayor of the city of Troy. In 1802 he was elected a Representative to the Thirty eighth Congress, and was reeled : — JAMES GUTHRIE was born in Kentucky, in 1795. Having spent s years in trading with New Orleans as the owner of flat-boate ettled in Louisville, as a lawyei\ at the age of twenty-five. He was at one time shot l>y a political opponent, and was in consequ< ace laid ap for three yei He served nine years in the State Legislature and six years in the Kentucky Senate. He subsequently to,.k an active part in banking lm- . - president of a railroad. In 1853 he became Secretary of the Treasury urn President Pierce. In 1865 he was elected United State- S- ■■ .■ the term ending in 1871. — 46, 134, 160, 210. ROBERT S. HALE was born in Chelsea, Vermont, in 1822, and gradu- ated at the University of Vermont in 1842. He settled for the practice of law at Blizabethtown, New Fork. He subsequently held the positions of Judge of Essex County, Regent of the University of New York, and Presidential Elector. He made liis tirst appearance in the National Legislature as a Representative in the Thirty-ninth Congress —82, 372. AARON HARDING was hum in Kentucky, and was admitted to the bar in 1833. In 1840 he was elected to the State Legislature H< has been a Representative in Congress from Kentucky since 1861. — 361, 4i - ABNER ('. HARDING was born in Connecticut in 1807. He pracl law in the State of New York, and subsequently in Illinois. He was for many years engaged extensively in farming and railroad management. In 1848 he was a member of the Illinois Constitutional Convention, and sul quently of the Legislature. In 1862 he enlisted as a private in the K3d Illi- nois Infantry, and became it- Colonel. He was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-general. In 1864 he was el, Tie, 1 a Representative from Illinois the Thirty ninth Congress. — 522. •-■ BENJAMIN G. HARRIS was born in Maryland, in 1806. He was for a time a student of Yale College, and afterward studied for some time at the Cambridge Law School. He returned to hi- native State, and ed in the practice of law and agriculture. He served for several years in the Maryland House of Delegates. In 1863 and again in 1865 he ■ ted a Representative to Congress. In May, 1865, he was arrested and tried by court-martial for violating the Fifty-sixth Arti.de of War. and was declared guilty, hut the President ordered the sentence of the court to he remitted in full.' Ih'A HARRIS was born in L802. As a boy hi' labored on a farm in sum- mer and attended school iu winter. Having graduated at Union College in BIOGRAPHICAL IX MIX. 591 1824, he became a member of the bar at AH. any, and for many years devote 1 his attention exclusively to his profession. In 1844 and L845 he was a mem- ber of the New York House of Representatives. In L846 he was elected a member of the State Senate. For twelve war- subsequently he held the position of Judge of the Supreme Court. In 1861 he was elected to the United States Senate for the term ending in 1 >67. — L5. 28. ROSWELL HART was born at Rochester, in 1824. He graduated at Vale College in 1843, and was admitted to the bar in 1847, but aband that profession for mercantile pursuits. He was tir the State Legislature, ami in 1 ^">0 lie was a member of the Indiana Constitutional Convention. From 1851 to 1855 he was a Representative in Congress from Indiana. He was appointed by President Pierce Commissioner of tie' lien- eral Land-office, and held the office until 1859, when In- resigned, lie was elected a Senator in Congress for the term ending in 1869. — 44, ins. 21 I. 306, 395, 432, loo. 531, 532, 548. WILLIAM IIICP.V was horn in New York, in 1813. Having graduated at the University of Vermont, he studied law and practiced tor a time- in his native State, lu 1850 he emigrated to California, and became a member of the State Senate in 1862. In 1863 he was elected a Representative to Con- gress from California, and was reelected in 1865.- 599 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGEES PHENEAS W. HITCHCOCK was born in New York, in L831. Having graduated at Williams College, M iss in 1855, he studied law, and emigrated to Nebraska Territory. In 1861 be was appointed by President Lincoln Marshal of the Territory, and held this office until hi- election as a Delegate from Nebraska to the Thirty-ninth Congress RALPH HILL was born in Ohio, October 12, 1827. Having graduated at the New York National Law Sri 1 in 1851, he removed to Indiana. In 1864 he was elected a Representative from Indiana to the Thirty-ninth I • ELIJAH IIISK. a Representative from Kentucky to tin- Thirty-ninth I gress. —51 I. 521. .!:>II\" HOGAN was born in Ireland, in 1805, and came with his father to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1817. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker, and ob- tained the rudiments of education in the Asbury Sunday-school. In 1826 Ik- removed to Illinois, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits. In 1836 he was a member of the State Legislature, in 1838 Commissioner t" the bar at Binghamton, New York, lie was elected in 1862 to represent the Twenty I jsional District of New York in the Thirty-eighth Congress, and was reelected in .1 \< .•'.; M HOWARD was horn in Vermont, in 1805, and graduated at Williams College in 1830. Having taught in an academy and studied law in Massachusetts, he removed I i Michigan in 1832, In 1838 he was a mem- BIOGRAPHICAL IjYDEX. 593 ber of the State Legislature, and in 1841 was elected a Representative to Congress from Michigan. He subsequently served for six years as Attorney- eeneral of the State In 1862 he was elected to a vacancy in the Qnited is Senate, and in 1865 he was elected for the term ending in L871. — 36, 196, 398, 453, 455, 530. TIMOTHY O. HOWE was born in Maine, in 1816. Tie was admitted to the bar in 1839, and was elected to the Legislature of Maine in 1845. Hav- ing removed to Green Bay, Wisconsin, he was, in 1850, elected a Circuit Judge. In 1861 he was elected a United States Senator for the term ending in 1867.— 421, 459. ASAHEL W. HUBBARD was born in Connecticut, in 1819, and having removed to Indiana, engaged in school-teaching, and studied law. In IS47 he became a member of the Indiana Legislature and served three years. He removed to Iowa in 1857, and was chosen Judge of the Fourth Judicial Dis- trict. In 1862 he was elected a Representative in Congress from Iowa, and was reelected in 1864. CHESTER D. HUBBARD was horn in Connecticut, in 1814, and was re- moved to Wheeling, Virginia, in 1819. Tie graduated at the Wesleyan Uni- versity in 1840, and engaged in banking. In 1852 he was a member of the Virginia Legislature. He served one term in the Senate of West Virginia its organization as a State. He was elected a Representative from West Virginia to the Thirty-ninth Congress. DEMAS HUBBARD was horn in Herkimer County, New York, in 1806. He has been occupied in farming and in the practice of law. He was for many years a member and chairman of the Board of Supervisors of Che- nango County, and from 1838 to 1840 was a member of the New York islature. In 1864 he was elected a Representative to the Thirty-ninth Congress. JOHN II. HUBBARD was horn in Connecticut in 1805, and was admit- ted to the bar in 1826, and devoted himself to his profession. Having served two terms in the State Senate, he was, in 1863, elected a Representative to Congress from Connecticut, and was reelected in lSiif). — 148. EDWIN N. HUBBELL was born in Coxsacksie, New York, in 1815. He levoted his attention to manufacturing and farming. In 1864 he was cted a Representative in the Thirty-ninth Congn JAMES R. HUBBELL was born in Ohio in 1824, and became a lawyer Ity profession. He served four term- in the Stat" Legislature, and was twice sleeted Speaker of the House. He was. in 1864, elected a Representative to Thirty-ninth Congress CALVIN T. HULBURD was born at Stock!, .dm. New York, in 1809. Having graduated at Middlebury College, Vermont, and read law at Yale "38 594 T i {J " Tiiii;T)--.Yi.vrn CONGRESS p he engaged in agriculture. He was times a member of the General Assembly of New York. In 1862 he was I to represent the nth District of N ■• ^ - >rk in the Thirty-eighth I and was reelected in 1864. JAMES HUMPHREY was born in Coi ticut in 1811, and in 1831 graduated :tt Amherst College, of which his father, Rev. Heman Humphrey, President. After having boon principal of an academy in Connecticut, I law, and commenced the praci ■ his profession in Louisville, Kentucky, where he remained only one year. In 1838 he removed to th<- city of New York for the practice of law. In 1859 he was elected a meui- if Congress, and served one term. After remaining in private life ;t few was elected a member of the Thirty-ninth Congress, but died be- fore its close, on the 16th of June, 1866. JAMES M HUMPHREY was lorn in Erie County, New York, in IS and, becoming a lawyer, he settled in the city of Buffalo. He was three years District Attorney tV>r Erie County, and two years a member of the State Senate. He was President of the Democratic State Convention in In the same year he went as ' to the Thirty-ninth < longress - JOHN W. HUNTER, a banker of Brooklyn, was elected a R tative from New York to the Thirty-ninth Congress to fill the vacancy by the death of James Humphrey. He took his seat in Congress D I,..,, j. L866 —515. EBON C. ENGERSOLL was born in New York, in 1831, and . Illinois in 1843. He was admitted to the bar in 1854, and became a mem- ber of the Illinois Legislature in 1856. He was elected a Representative to the Thirty-eighth Congress for the unexpired term of Owen Lovej I was in 1864 reelected to the succeeding Congress. — 521. THOMAS A JENCKES was born at Providence, Rhode Island, in 1811. He graduated at Brown University in 1838 He practiced law until his election to Congress in 1863 lb' has served a- Chairman of the Conn on Patents, ami the Committee < the bar in 1 S 4 S . lb- was two year.- a member of the State Legislature and was Chairman of the Democratic State Convention in 1857 In I860 he was elected a Repre- sentative from Pennsylvania to the Thirty-seventh Congress, and was subse- quently twice reelected, lie died before tin- expiration of tie' term tor which 1..' was elected as a member of the Thirty ninth Congress. — 90. REVERDY JOHNSON was born at Annapob's, Maryland, in 1796 Hi- life hay beeu devoted to the profession of law. In 1^L''> he was appointed BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. ! bief Commissioner of Insolvent Debtors. In 1821 he was elected a 3l • Senator, in 1845 he became a United States Senator, but resigned in 1849 to accept the office of Attorney-general of the CJniti 3 i him by President Taylor. In 1862 he was reelected to the United States - a the term ending in L869. — 36, 96, 163, 198, 203, 264, 271, 384, 427, 461, 528, 532, 533, 547. MORGAN JONES was born in 1832, and pursued the bus plumber in New York City. He served as city councilman for several years, and was subsequently elected a member of the Board of A '■ of which he was made president. In 1864 he was elected a me . : the Thirty-ninth Congress. GEORGE W. JULIAN was born in Indiana, May 5, 1817. After spend- ing three years as a school-teacher, he studied law. and commi i the practice of the profession in 1841. In 1845 he was a member 61 the State Legislature; in 1848, a Delegate to the Buffalo Convention: and in 184 Representative in Congress from Indiana. In 1852 he was a candidate for Vice-President of the United States on the ticket with .John P. Hal President. In 1860 he was reelected a Representative to Congress, and has remained a member by successive reelections to the present time. — 31, 74, 364, 516, 553. JOHN A. KASSON was born in Vermont, in 1822. and having graduated at the University of Vermont, he studied law in Massachusetts, arid prac- ticed the profession for a time in St. Louis. Missouri. In 1857 he removed to Iowa, and was appointed a Commissioner to report upon the condition of the Executive Departments of Iowa, In 1861 he was appointed Assi Postmaster-general, but resigned the position in the following yt-.'.v. when he was elected a Representative to Congress from Iowa. He was reelected in 1864 to the Thirty-ninth Congress.— 72, 363, 525. WILLIAM D. KELLEY was born in Philadelphia, in 1814. He com menced life as a reader in a printing-office. He subsequently spent seven years as an apprentice in a jewelry establishment. He then went to Bos ton, and there, for four years, followed his trade. Returning to Philadelphia, he studied law. and came to the bar in 1*41 For several years he was Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia. He has been a Represi tive in three successive Congresses — the Thirty-seventh, Thirty-eighth, and Thirty-ninth.— 51, 58, 349, 438, 526. JOHN R. KELSO was born in Ohio, in L831. He was educated at PI. ant Ridge College, Missouri, and subsequently became principal of an acad- emy. He served in the civil war as a captain, and was. in 1 8C>4, elected a Representative to Congress from Missouri. MICHAEL C KERR was born in Pennsylvania. March 15. 1827. He taught school and studied law, graduating to a degree in that profession in the University of Louisville. Having settled at New Albany, Indiana, he THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRE& ■ [ re- the Supreme Court, and published five relumes 11 I ■ i 58 from [ndiana in 1864. — 147 JOHN I! KETCHAM was bora in Duchess County, New Fork, in : ived :m academical education, he d cultural | lit 1856 and \<<~ h< - i member < Repn - -. and of the Si - in 1860 and 1861 He the military service in 18 • Colonel of the L50th New Y ■ and became a Brigadi ral by brevet. II ■in New York to the Thirty-ninth I i bis position in the army in .March. 1865. - MUEL .1. KIRKWOOD was born in Maryland, Dec Having removed to Ohio, lit- studied law, and was admitted t" the bar in He wag four years a Prosecuting Attorney, and was a member of the Ohio Constitutional Convention in 1850. Having removed to Iowa, hew to the Starr Senate in 1856. He was Governor of Ohio from I? ami. in January. 1866, he was elected a United States Senator fr the unexpired term of James Harlan, ending in l v WILLIAM II KOONTZ, a lawyer by profession, was from Pennsylvania to the Thirty-ninth Congress He su contested the seat taken by Alexander II. Coffroth, and was admit! the • the first session. — 508. ANDREW J. KUYKENDALL was hum in Illinois, March 3, 1815, From ! s 42 to 1846 he was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, and was. from 1850 to 1862, a mi ' the - nate. He was Major in the 31st Illinois Infantry, bul iint of ill health in the early part of the war. In 1864 he • ■ - ted a Representative to Congress from lllinoi ADDISON 11 LAFLIN was born in Lee, Massachus - L823 graduated at Williams" in 1843 He afterward - in Herkimer County New York, and became engaged extensively in the manufa paper. In 1857 he was elected State Senator. In 1864 he « - Re] live to the Thirty-ninth Congress HENRY S LANE was born in Kentucky, February 24, ' I having studied law, removed to Indiana and practiced his profession In \^"~ he to the Indiana Legislature. From 1841 to l x i; be in Congress He served in the Mexican war. undei I Taylor, lieutenant-colonel of volunteers In l sl >l he was elected governo Indiana, but resigned the office two days after his inauguration to accept the offii f United States Senator, to which he was elected for the term ending in 1867.— 213, 381, 383 199, 5 BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 607 JAMES H. LANK was born i : * Indiana, June 22, 1814. Ee served the country as a soldier in the Mexican war. He was Lieutenant-govern Indiana in 1849. As a Representative to Congr — from Indiana, be served one term, ending in 1855. Having removed to Kansas, be took a prominent part in the territorial politics. On the admission of Kansas into the I i he was elected a United States Senator, and was subsequently reel the term ending in 1871. He committed suicide on the first of July, 171,201, 279, 284, 457, 569. GEORGE R. LATHAM was born in Virginia, in 1832. He taught school and studied law. In 1859 he was admitted to the bar. In 1860 h lited a campaign paper. In the war he became Colonel of the 2d Virginia u- fantry, and was elected a Representative to the Thirty-ninth Congress from West Virginia. GEORGE V. LAWRENCE was born in Washington County. Pennsyl- vania, in 1818. lie received a liberal education and devoted himse agricultur.il pursuits. He was first elected to the Legislature in 1844 served at different times in both houses — in all nine years — part of the time Berving as Speaker of the Senate. In 1864 he was elected a Representative from Pennsylvania to the Thirty-ninth Congress. — 343. WILLIAM LAWRENCE was born in Ohio, June 16, 1819. Having graduated at Franklin College, he taught school and studied law. He was not only engaged in the practice of his profession, but was. at various a newspaper editor, member of both branches of the State Legisl: reporter for the Supreme Court, and Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. In 1864 he was elected a Representative from Ohio to the Thirty-ninth gress. — 520. FRANCIS C. LeBLONI) was born in Ohio, and became a lawyer in 1851 and in 1853 he was elected to the State Legislature and served as Speaker. In 1862 he was elected a Representative to Congress from Ohio, and was reelected in 1864. — 243, 306, 519, 538, 547. JOHN W. LEFTWICH has been occupied with mercantile pursuits in Tennessee. In 1865 he was elected a Representative from that State to the Thirty-ninth Congress, and was admitted to his seat near the (dose of th -' session. BENJAMIN F. LOAN was born in Kentucky, in 1818. He sett I in Missouri in 1838, and became a lawyer by profession. He engaged in the military service of the country in the civil war. and became a brigadier- general. In March, 1863, he became a member of Congress, and wa- re- elected a Representative to the Thirty-ninth Congtf JOHN W. LONGYEAR was born in New York, in 1820, and removed to Michigan in 1844. lie was admitted to the bar in 1846. I le was a Represent- ative from Michigan to the Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses. — 147. THE THIRTY-NINTH COJVGRE& IV LYN< II a me >rtland, >T:i j - wa February 15, 1825. Saving Berved two terms in the State I ture, he took his seal in L865 as a Representative in Congress from Mai - V.MUEL S. MARSHALL was born in Illinois, and educ land College, Kentucky. He d< voted himself to the practice of taw in Illinois, and wa 1 to the Sta slature in 1846 He ser State Attor- . and subsequently as a circuit judge. II" has 1 n a Representative from Illinois in the Thirty-fourth, Thirty-fifth, and Thirty-ninth [LMAN MARSIXXS having graduated at Da College in 1837, and uently practiced Law for several years, was elected to the New Hamp- shire Legislature in 1845, where he served four years. In 1859 he was elected ,-i member of Congress. Soon after the breaking out of the war, b ■ was ap- pointed Colonel of the 2d New Hampshire regiment. II" was in several battles, and in 1863 wag missioned a brigadier-general. Having retired from the army on the fall Richmond, he was elected a member of the Thirty-ninth Congress from New Hampshire. JAMES M. MAKVIN was born in Saratoga County, New York, in 1 He i~ proprietor <>l' one •>:' the large hotels of Saratoga. II" was elected to the Legislature of New 5Tork in 1846, ami subsequently held the office Countj Supervisor. In 1862 lie was elected a member of the Thirty-eighth Con - • om New York, and was reelected in 1864. HORACE MAYNARD was born in Massachusetts, in 1814. Having duated at Amherst College, he emigrated to Tennessee, and became Pro- fessor of Mathematics in the University of East Tennessee. Having studied law. he was admitted to til" bar in 1844. lie was a Presidential Elector in !-•■_'. and was a Representative from Tennessee to the rhirty-fifth, Thirty sixth, and Thirty-seventh Congresses For his loyalty he was driven from his home ami had hi- | confiscated by the rebels II" was I a lie Thirty-nin I ress, and was admitted to his seat near dm close of tie' firsl session.— 17, -17-. 506, ~<-~. JOSEPH W M'CLURG was born in Missouri, in 1818 !l" Bpent some a teacher in Louisiana, and going t<> Texas in 1 > 1 1 . he became a law- yer and a clerk of the Circuil Court. In I S 1I li" settled as a merchant in Missouri. In the early part of the war he was a colonel in the Union army. In 1863 he became a i. mtative in < '.ue.: >-,•--, from Missouri, and again in 1 - HIRAM M'CULLOUGH, a native of Maryland, was horn in 1813 lie mitted to the bar in 1838. from 1845 to L851 he served in the Mary- land Scnati II" entered R fi >m Maryland in BIOG /.'• / /'// ICAL J.\ 'BEX. 509 JAMES A. ML'DOUGALL was born at Bethlehem, New York, in 1817. He assisted in the survey ol the first railroad ever built in this country. In 1837 he removed to Illinois and engaged in the practice of law. In 1842 ho was chosen Attorney-general of Illinois. In 1849 he originated and accom- panied an exploring expedition to the far West. He sunn after emigrated to California, and in L850 was elected Attorney-general of that State. He sub- [uentlj served a term as a Representative in Congress from California. In 1861 he was elected a United States Senator for the term ending with the ex- tion of the Thirty-ninth Congress.- -137, L63, 277. 287, 432, t61 WALTER l>. M'INDOE, a native of Scotland, was born in 1819. He emigrated to New York City in his fifteenth year, and was a clerk in that and afterward in Charleston and St. Louis. He subsequently went to Wisconsin and engaged in the lumber business. He served in the Wisconsin Legislature for a number of years, and was twice a Presidential Elector. He has been a Representative from Wisconsin in the Thirty-seventh, Thirty- eighth, and Thirty-ninth Congress - SAMUEL M'KEE was '■ m in Kentucky, in 1833. He graduated at the Miami University, and afterward at the Cincinnati Law School. He was in the Union army, as Captain of the 14th Kentucky Cavalry, from 18G2 to 1864. He spent fourteen months as a prisoner in Libby Prison. In 1865 he was elected a Representative from Kentucky to the Thirty-ninth Con- fess. — 152, 361, 441 . DONALD C. M'RUEll, a native of Maine, was born in 1826, and engaged in mercantile pursuits. He emigrated to California, and in 1864 was elected a Representative from that State to the Thirty-ninth Congress. ULYSSES MERCUR was born in Pennsylvania, August 12. 1818, and graduated at Jefferson College in 1842. He was admitted to the bar in 1843, and b President Judge of the Thirteenth Judicial District of JVnnsyl- •. iii:i in 1861, hut resigned the office on being elected, in 1S64. a member of the Thirty-ninth Congress from Pennsylvania. GEORGE F. MILLER was born in Pennsylvania, September .7. 1809. He studied law, and was admitted to the liar in is:;:;. He took an active inter- est in local politics, but frequently declined nominations for county and State offices. In 1864 he was elected a Representative to the Thirty-ninth Congress from Pennsylvania. — 44-J, 510. JAMES K. MOORHEAD was born in Pennsylvania, in 1806. He -pent outh on a farm and as an apprentice to a tanner. He was a contractor ling the Susquehannah branch of the Pennsylvania Canal, on which be inated a passenger packet line. In L836 he removed to Pittsburgh, where !..■ became president of a company for the improvement of the navigation of the Monongahela, and subsequently was president of several telegraph uom- [n 1859 he was elected a Representative to the Thirty-sixth from Pennsylvania, and has been reel Cted m. — 31. 600 THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS. KI 'WIN D. MORGAN i in M ill. He w . and afterward partner in a who! - in !l out. In 1836 hi I in New "> mercantile pursuits. In 1849 he wa* i alderman :ity, and after was elected ;i member of the State Senate, in which he I two 1856 I I'll Chairman of the National !.' In 1? ' York, i i I During his administration, 223,000 tro from New York. Governor Morgan was appointed by President 1 aeral of \\<\ - In 1863 he was elected I nib from New York. JUSTIN S. MORRILL was born in Vermont, April 14, 1810. His life was occupied in mercantile pursuits until 1848, when he turned his attention to agriculture. In l s ">4 he wsis elected a Representative Vermont to the Thirty-fourth Coi - and held a seat in the House l> ve reelections until March, 1867, when he became United : tor for tlw term ending in 1873. — IT. 1 l.o'l' M. MORRILL was born at Belgrade, Maine, in 1815. II. ■ Btudied at Waterville I and was admitted to the liar in 1839. In 1854 he wa- it member of the M ture, and in 1856 he was President of the 1 35S he was Governor of Main.', and was twice r In 1861 he was elected United States Senator for tin- unexpired term "? Vice-President Hamlin. He was subsequently reelected for the term ending in 1869.— 204, 108, 185, 489, 530. DANIEL MORRIS was born in Seneca County, New York, in 1812. He a farmer, taught school for a time, and finally became a lawyer. Having been District Attorney tor Yates County and member of the State dature, he was in 1862 elected a Representative from New York to the Thirty-eighth Coi and in 1864 was reelected. SAMUEL W. MOULTON was born in Massachusetts, in 1822, and set! in Illinois in 1845. II.' I.e. -aim- a lawyer, and was a member of tin' Illinois : dature from I s "*:! to 1859. II.' was for a number of years President of the Board of Education of Illinois. In 1865 he entered » i as ■■■. atative from Illinois. — 1 19 LEONARD MYERS was born in Attleborough, Pennsylvania, in 1- Having entered the profession of law. an. I settled in Philadelphia, he became itor lor two municipal
  • tri.-ts in that city. In 1862 In- was i I a. member of the Thirty-eighth Congress, and two years thereafter \\ lor a Becond term. JAMES W NESM1TH, a native of Main.', was born in 1820. When quite young, he removi I to New Hampshire, emigrated to Ohio in 1838, equently spi time in Missouri, and finally Bettled in Oregon in In is.".:; he was appointed United States Marshal He BIOGRAPHICAL IX I) EX. 601 was subsequently Superintendent of Endian Affairs for Oregon and Wash- ington. In 1861 he entered Congress as Senator from Oregon for the term ending in 1867. WILLIAM A. NEWELL is a native of Ohio, and a graduate of Rutg College. Ho studied medicine, and took up his residence in New Jersey. He was a member of Congress from that Stare from 1^17 to 1851. In 185(3 he was elected Governor of New Jersey, and held the office till I860, lie was again elected a Representative to Congress in 1864. WILLIAM E. NIBLACK was horn in Indiana, in 1822. He was admit- ted to the bar in 1843. From 1849 to 1852 lie served in the State Le<'is- lature. in 1854 he became a Circuit Judge, and served as sneli lor several years. lie was a Representative Iron! Indiana to the Thirty-fifth. Thirty- sixth, and Thirty-ninth Congresses. — 5_(j. JOHN A. NICHOLSON was horn in Delaware, in 1827. Havin* -radii- ated at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, he studied law, and settled in Dover, Delaware. In 1865 he entered Congress as a Representative from Delaware. — THOMAS E. NOELL was born in Missouri, in 1839. Was admitted to the bar at nineteen years of age. In 1862 he was appointed a Captain in the 19th regiment of regular United States Infantry. He was. in 1864, elected a Representative from Missouri to the Thirty-ninth Congress DANIEL S. NORTON* was born at Mount Vemon, Ohio, in 1829. Hav- ing been educated at Kenyon he served in the Mexican war. went to California, and thence to Nicaragua, returned to Ohio, and finally, in 1855, emigrated to Minnesota,. In 1867 he was elected a State Senator, and was several times reelected. In 1865 he took his seat as a Senator from Minne- sota for the term ending in 1871. - JAMES W. NYE was born in New York, in 1815, and entered the pro- fession of law. In 1861 he was appointed by President Lincoln Governor of Nevada Territory. lie held this office until the admission of Nevada into the Union, when he was elected a Senator from the new State for the term ending in 1871. — 125, l~>7. CHARLES O'NEILL was born in Philadelphia, in 1821. Saving gadu- ated at Dickinson College, and studied law. he was admitted to the bar in 1843. lie served five years in the House of Representatives and Senate of Pennsylvania. In 1862 he was elected a Representative to the Thirl Congress. In 1865 he entered upon his second term in Congr GODLO^ E S. OIM'II was born in Pennsylvania, in 1817, and was edu- cated at Pennsylvania College. Having adopted the profession of law, he located in Indiana. He served -i\ years in the State Senate, and one year go: the thirty-ninth congress. i i r hi 1862 he wae resentative I ' - from Indiana, and was reelected in 1864.— 3 HALBERT E PAINE was born at Chardon, Ohio, in 1826. Having graduated at the Western Reserve College, he studied law and located in Cleveland. In l s ~>7 he removed to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He entered the army in 1861 as Colonel of the Itli Wisconsin regiment, and soon rose to the rank of Brigadier-general. He lost a leg in June, 1863, at the last assault mi Port Hudson. Resigning his commission in 1865, he wa 1 a Rep- resentative to the Thirty-ninth Congress from Wisconsin. — 504. DAVID T. PATTERSON, a lawyer of Greenville, Tenj - years a Circuit Judge, was elected in 186 - to Congress from Ten- but was not admitted to his seat until near the close of the firsl sion of the Thirty-ninth Congress. — 178 JAMES W. PATTERSON was born in New Hampshire, in 1823, and graduated at Dartmouth College in 1848. In 1 85 1 he was appointed a Pro- fessor in Dartmouth College. In l s, '>2 he was elected a Representative to Congress from New Hampshire, and was reelected in 1854. 11" was subse- quently elected a Senator to Congress for the term ending in l v 7;. SIDNEY PERHAM was born at Woodstock. Maine, in 1819. Until his thirty-fourth year he was a farmer and teacher. In I s ",.", he was a member and Speaker of the Maine Legislature. !!■• subsequently held the "Hi County Clerk. In 1862 he was elected a Representative from Maine to • gress, and was reelected in ! s 'il. CHARLES E. PHELPS, a native of Vermont, was born in 1833. Having lated at Prii ton College in 1853, he came to the Maryland bar in In 1862 he was made Lieutenant-colonel of the 7th Maryland Volun- and was discharged, on account of wounds, in 1864. He w is elected a Representative from Maryland to the Thirty-ninth Congress. — ! FREDERICK A. PIKE was born in Calais. Maim'. Me was for several yars a i and once Speaker of the Maim' Legislature. He was a iber of the Thirty-seventh, Thirl th, and Thirty-ninth I '• 519 \ PLANTS was Kuril in Pennsylvania, in 1811. He rem< re he practiced as a lawyer. From 1858 to 1861 he was a mem- Ohio Legislature, In 1864 he was elected a Representative to 1 38 i'i i ( >hio. — 503, LUKE P. POLAND was horn at Westford, Vermont, in 1815. He took in th" Senate of the United Stati s at tl pening of the Thirty-ninth ' 'ess, having 1 n appointed to fill the vacancy occasioned death 1 ' He was admitted to the bar in 1836, and was ,.], is of tip- - Vermont in 1848, which office he BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 60S held until his appointmenl to the Senate in L865. At the close of hia S torial term, in 1867, he took a seal in the other house of Con as a Rep- ; esentative from Vermont. — 28, 469. SAMUEL C. POMEUOY was born in Massachusetts, in 1816. He was elected to the Legislature of Massachusetts in 1852. He aided in organizing the New England Emigrant Aid Society in 1854. In the same year lie re- moved to Kansas, and became a member of the Territorial Defense Commit- tee. In 1861 he was elected United States Senator from Kansas. — 104, 195. THEODORE M. POMEROY was born in Cayuga, New York, in 1824. He graduated at Hamilton College, and became a lawyer by profession. From 1850 to 1856 he was District Attorney for his native county, and in 1 v ~>7 was a member of the New York Legislature. He has held a seat in Congress since 1 36 1 . — 30. » HIRAM PRICK was born in Pennsylvania, January 10, 1814. He is President of the State Bank of Iowa. In 1862 he was elected a Represent- ative to Congress from Iowa, and was reelected in 1864. — 30. WILLIAM RADFORD was born at Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1814. He settled in New York City in 1829, and engaged in mercantile pursuits. He was elected a member of Congress in 1862, and again in 1864. ALEXANDER RAMSEY was born in Pennsylvania, in 1815. From 1843 to 1S47 he was a Representative in Congress from Pennsylvania. In 1 349 he was appointed, by President Taylor, the first Territorial Governor of Minnesota, holding the office until 1853. During his term of office, he nego- ' some important Indian treaties. From 1858 to 1862 he held the office of Governor of the State of Minnesota. In 1S6:> he was elected a United States Senator from Minnesota for the term ending in 1869. SAMUEL J. RANDALL was born in Philadelphia, in 1828. He was for many years engaged in mercantile pursuits. He served four years in the Philadelphia City Council and one term in the State Senate. In 1862 he was elected a Representative to the Thirty-eighth Congress, and in 1864 reelected as a member of the Thirty-ninth. — 444. WILLIAM H. RANDALL was born in Kentucky. Having studied law, he was admitl the bar in 1835. Having held the office of Clerk of the Circu ! i ra number of years, he was, in 1862, elected a Representa- from Kentucky, and was reelected in 18 HENRY J. RAYMOND was born at Lima, New York, in 1820. !n 1840 .* the University of Vermont, and soon after went to New York City, where, in 1841, he became the managing editor of the "New York Tri- bune." 1 [uently became the leading editor of the "New York Courier and Enquirer." In 1849 he was elected to the New York Legislature, and havii - made Speaker of the House. In 1851 he estab- THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGI lished the "New York Tin Be was subsequently ant- governor of New York, and again a member of the General Ass *ul ly. He made his first appearance as a meml I press in 1865. — 155, --'.\. 314, 372, 140, 512, 524. UjEXANDER H RICE was born at N'ewton, M - in 1818, traduated at Union College, in 1844, and subsequi d in the manufacture of paper. After having been Mayor of Boston b red Con- in 1859, as Representative from Massachusetts to the Thirtj ■ >, and has since retained his seat by successive reel JOHN II. RICE was born in Maim-. February 5, 1816. Havii sheriff, lumberman, and lawyer, he was el< - Attorney of Maine in 1 V -V-'. He held this office until 1861, when i ted a Representative in Congress from Maim-. Having been twice ed he was a member of the Thirty-ninth Congress GEORGE READ RIDDLE was born at Newcastle, Delaware, in 1-17. He tu engi ring, and was occupied for some year- nals and rail- roads in Delaware and Pennsylvania. He afterward Btudied law and was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1848. In L850 he was elected a Repre- sentative i" Congress from Delaware, and was reelected in \^'>-. In I8i was elected a United States Senator for the term ending in 1869 but died in March, l v '''7. BURWELL C RITTEB was horn in Kentucky, January 10, 1810. has devoted his life to agricultural pursuits. In 1843, and again in I N -">n. he was a member of the Stale Legislature. In 1865 he was elected a Repre- sentativi Kentucky to the Thirty-ninth Congress. — 149. ANDREW J. ROGERS was horn at Hamburg, New Jersey, in 182S. He spent his youth as an assistant in a hotel and in a country store. He studied law while engaged in school-teaching, and was admitted to the bar in 1852. [n L862 he was elected a Representative to Congress from Nevi Jersey, and in L864 was reelected a member of the Thirty-ninth Congress —59, 222, 306, 325, 117. 162, 520 EDWARD II ROLLINS was horn in New Hampshire, « -3, 1824, and was occupied for several years in the business of an apothecary. He al limes a member and Speaker of the State Legislature. In I860 he was elected n Representative to Congress, and was reelected in l v i>i! and L864 E. !!. ROSS was horn in Wisconsin, and commenced life as a printer In he removed to Kansas, and was a member of the Constitutional vention and the State Legislature. He was in the army during the civil war as major of a Kansas regi nt. Ih' subsequently became editor of the "Lawrence Tribun In July, 1866, he was appointed a United States .lor lor the unexpired term of James H. Lane, deceased. — "'!.".. BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 605 LEWIS W ROSS was born in New York in 1812, and was removed to Illinois when a boy. Having been educated at the Illinois College, be en- tered the profession of law. In L840 and 1844 he was a member of the State Legislature. In 1862 he was elected a Representative to Con from I llinnis. ami was reelected in L864. LOVELL H. ROUSSEAU was born in Kentucky, in 1818. Having studied law. he removed to Indiana in 1^41. He was three years a meinb the Indiana House of Representatives, and three years a member of the State Senate. He serve'] as a captain in the Mexican war. and on his returi tied in Louisville, Kentucky. In I860 he was elected to the Senate of Ken- tucky, but resigned his seat to raise a regiment for the war. In June, 1861, he was commissioned a colonel, and in October of that year was appointed a brigadii ral. In October, L862, he was appointed a major-general. In L865 he was elected a Representative to the Thirty-ninth Congress from Kentucky. — 151, ~>~2. WTLLARD SAULSBURY was horn in Delaware, June 'Jit. 1820, and was educated at Dickinson College. He was admitted to the bar in 1845, and was appointed Attorney-general of Delaware in 1850. He was elected United States Senator in [859, and was subsequently reelected for the term ending in L87L— 24, 44 127. 192, 219, 2s7, 306, 405, 496, 534, 548. PHILETUS SAWYER is a native of Vermont. He removed to Wiscon- sin and engaged in the lumber trade. In 1857 and 1861 he was elected to the Wisconsin Legislature. In 1864 he was elected a Representative to Congress from Wisconsin. ROBERT <\ SCHENCK was horn in Ohio. October 4. L809. Having gradu Miami University, lie studied law, and was admitted to the La- in 1831. In IS40 and 1842 he was elected to the Ohio Legislature, ami from 1843 to 1851 he was a Representative in Congress, lie was appointed by President Fillmore Minister to Brazil. He gave efficient service to the country in the civil war, and reached the rank of Major-general. In L862 he w ed a Representative to Congress, and was reelected in L864. — 31, 353, 366, 539, .">37. GLENN! W SCHOFIELD was horn in New York. March 11. 1817, and graduated at Hamilton College in 1840. Having removed to Pennsylvania, he was admitted to the bar in 1843. He was a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1850 and 1851, and was State Senator from I 85 1 to L859. He held for a short time the position of Judge of the Eighteenth Judicial District of the State. In 1862 he was elected a member of the Thirty- Congress, and was reelected in 1864. — 56, 508. GEORGE S SHANKLIN, a lawyer by profession, was a Represents from Kentucky to the Thirty-ninth Congress. — 151, 44i! he was apj brigadier-general, and subsequently reached the rank of major-general. In imber, 1st;.;, he resigned Ids military commission to take i as ; <. Representative from Kentucky in the Thirty-eighth Congresa He was 1 a member of the Thirty-ninth Congress, but before tl ration "!' his term In- was appointed by the President Governor of ;!•■■ Tei Montana. — I Kill S P. SPALDING was born in Massachusetts, May 3, 1798. lie graduated at Vale College in 1817 lie removed to Ohio, and commenc< 1 the practice of law in 1821. In 1839 and 1841 he was a mei '.'the Ohio Legislature, and during the last term was Speaker. He held l tion <>f Judge of the Superior Court lor three years. In 1 Bl i2 he '.\ is eli I a Representative to Congress from Ohio, and was reelected in 1864. — 319, 443, 508. WILLIAM SPRAGUE was horn in 1830. Having studied for a tin Irving Institute, he spent several years in the counting-room of his uncle, upon who-.' death fie came into , ion of one of the largest manufactur- ing interests in the country. He was elected Governor of Rhode Island in 1861. t'u the breaking out of the rebellion, he led the volunteers of Rhode Island into the Bervice of the country, and wa- with them at the fir-: battle of Bull Run. In 1862 he was elected United State- Senator for the term ending 1869.— 27, 4'J4. BIO a R, 1 / 7/ K'.IL INDEX '. 6 7 JOHN P. STARR was born in Philadelphia, in 1818. He removed to New Jersey in 1844 and engaged in manufactures, hi 1863 he was eli a Representative to Congress from New Jersey, and entered upon hi term in 1865. THADDEUS STEVENS was born in Vermont, April 4, IT.':;. He grad- uated at Dartmouth College in 1814, and immediately removed to Peni vania, where he taughl In an academy and al the same time studied law. He was a member of the Stale Legislature at various dates between I s :;:; and isli!. In 1836 he was a member of the Convention to revise the Con- stitution of the State. In I s (s j u . was elected a Representative to I from Pennsylvania, and was i id in 1850. After an interval of a few years, he was, in 1858, reelected to the Thirty-sixth Congress, and has since by successive reelections, held a seat in the House of Representatives. — 18, 24, 29, 34, 48, 156, 308, 325, 357, 366, 417. 418, 4:;."., 436, 449, 4G3, 178, 5 12, 513, 514, 518, 528, 536, "<17. 555, 563, 575 WILLIAM M. STEWART was born in New York, August 9, 1827. Having spent a few months as a student at Yale College, he left for Cali- fornia. There he studied law, and finally settled in the Territory of Utah (now Nevada). He was a member of the Territorial Legislature in 1861, and of tin- ('(institutional Convention in 1863. In 1865 he entered the United States Senate from Nevada for the term ending in 1869. — 100, 107, 275, 427, 435, 454. 459, 7730. THOMAS N. STILWELL was born in Ohio. August 29, 1830. lie studied at Oxford and College Hill. Ohio. Having removed to Indiana in L852, lie was admitted to the bar. In 1856 he was a member of the State Legis- lature, and subsequently engaged in banking. In 1864 he was eleel Representative to the Thirty-ninth Congress from Indiana. JOHN P. STOCKTON was horn in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1825. He graduated at Princeton College in 1843, and entered upon the practii I law in 1846. In 1858 he was appointed by President Buchanan Min Resident to Rome. At tie' opening of the Thirty-ninth Congress he appeared as Senator from New Jersey. The question of his fight to the seat ui went long discussion, and at length was decided against him on tie' 27th of March, 1866.— 568. WILLIAM B. STOKES was horn in North Carolina. September 9, 1814. Removing to Tennessee, he engaged in agricultural pursuits. 1 1 three terms in the Tennessee Legislature, and was a Representative from Tennessee to the Thirty-sixth Congress. He served as a colonel in the Union army during the civil war. Jn L865 he was elected a Representative ;■• the Thirty-ninth Congress. — 180, 536. MYER STROUSE was born in Germany, December 16, 1825. He came with his father to America in 1832, and settled in Pennsylvania. He studied law, but devoted himself for a time to editing the " North American Farmer, 60 THE THIRTT-JfljYTR CONGRE& in Philadelphia, after which he engaged a. -lively in the practii 1' bis pro- .;,,,, in 1862 he was elected a Representative to the Thirty-eighth Con- gress, and was reelected in L864. CHARLES SUMNER was born in Boston, January 6, 1811. He gradu- Harvard College in 1830, and was admitted to the bar in 1834. He i much tiin rarv labors, having edit ral volumes of and published two volumes of orations, which appeared in L850. !u 18)1 he wm I a United States Senator. In 1856 he was assaul in ihamber by Preston S. Brooks, a Representative from South Car - sriously injured that he sought restoration by a temporary in Europe. He was twice reelected to the Senate. lli< third term . - n-vicc will close in 1869. — 15, 26, 99, 373, 374, 380 153, IS3, I 1 .'.*. 540, 541, 571. STEPHEN TABER, whose father was a member of Congress in L828, was born in Dutchess County, New York, and settled as a farmer on Long [aland in L839. Having been twice a member of the State Legislature, he took his seat in 1865 in the Thirty-ninth Congress. NATHANIEL G. TAYLOR was born in Tennessee December 29, 1819, and graduated at Princeton College in 1840. He was adm i the bar in 1843. In 1854 lie was a Representative in Congress. He has been a minis- ter iu the Methodist Episcopal Church South. In 1865 he was elected a Rep- resentative tn the Thirty-ninth Congress from Tennessi NELSON TAYLOR was born in Connecticut, in L821, and embarked in the profession of law. He served in the Mexican war as captain of a com- pany of New York Volunteers, lie subsequently went to < lalifornia, and was : a member of the State Senate in 1849. He served as Sheriff of San Joaquin County, California, in 1853. He went into the war of 1861 as Colonel of the 72d regiment of New York Volunteers, and was soon pro- moted to the rank of Brigadier-general. At the close of his military Bervice. lie took his seal as a Representative from New York in the Thirty-ninth i - . — 1 45. M. RUSSELL THAYER was born in Petersburg, Virginia, in 1819 il raduated at the University of Pennsylvania, he studied law, and was a, i i the bar in IS42. In 1862 he was elected a Representative to the Thirty-eighth Congress from Pennsylvania, and was reelected in 1864. — 83, .22. FRANCIS THOM V.S was born in Maryland, February 3, 1799. He was admitted to the bar in 18*2 m 1822 to 1829 he was three times a mem- ber and oi iker of the Maryland House of Delegates. From 1831 to 1841 he was a Re itive in Congress from Maryland. From 1841 to 1844 h Maryland. In I860 he was elected for the sixth ma Representative I C ogress, and was reelected in L862 and 1864 BIOGRAPHICAL I. YD EX. 600 JOHN L. THOMAS, Jr., was born in Baltimore, May 20, 1835. He was admitted to the bar La 1856. In 1863 lie was elected State Attorney for Maryland. In 1865 he was elected a Representative to the Thirty-ninth Congress from Maryland to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of E. II. Webster. ANTHONY THORNTON was bom in Kentucky, November 9, 1814. Having graduated at the Miami University, he studied law and removed to Illinois. In 1847 he was a member of the Convention which framed the Constitution, and in 1862 was in the Convention to revise the State Constitu- tion. Having previously served in the State Legislature, he was elected a Representative to the Thirty-ninth Congress from Illinois. — 228. LAWRENCE S. TRIMBLE was born in Kentucky, in 1825. He is a lawyer by profession. In 1851 and 1852 he was a member of the Kentucky Legislature. He was four years a Judge of the Equity and Criminal Court. From I860 to 1865 he was President of the New Orleans and Ohio Rail- road Company. He was elected a Representative from Kentucky to the Thirty-ninth Congress.— 152, 342, 511. LYMAN TRUMBULL was born in Connecticut, in 1813. Having en- gaged in the profession of law, he removed to Illinois, and was, in 1840, elected to the Legislature of that State. In 1841 he was elected Secretary of State. From 1848 to 1853 he' was Justice of the Supreme Court of Illi- nois. He was a Representative from Illinois to the Thirty-fourth Congress. In 1855 he entered the United States Senate from Illinois. He was reelected in 1861 and again in 1867.— 22, 28, 45, 98, 104, 105, 108, 120, 136, 158, 162, 171, 188, 190, 199, 209, 216, 253, 269, 424, 457, 476, 540. ROWLAND E. TROWBRIDGE was born at Elmira, New York, in 1821. He graduated at Kenyon College, Ohio, in 1841, and devoted himself to farming in Michigan. In 1856 and 1858 he was a member of the Michigan Senate. In 1860 he was elected a Representative from Michigan to the Thirty-seventh Congress, and was reelected in 1864. CHARLES UPSON was born in Connecticut, March 19, 1821. Having removed to Michigan he was admitted to the bar in 1847. He was a Staff Senator in 1855 and 1856, and held the office of Attorney-general for Michi- gan in 1861 and 1862. In the latter year he was elected a Representative to Congress from Michigan, and was reelected in 1864. HENRY VAN AERNAM was born at Marcellus, New York, in 1819. Having graduated at a medical college, he practiced as a physician and sur- geon In 1858 he was a member of the State Legislature. In 1862 he en- tered the army as surgeon of the 154th New York regiment. He resigned this position in 1864, and was elected a Representative from New York to the Thirty-ninth Congress. 39 610 THE THIRT) -.V/.V77/ CONGRESS. BURT NAN BORN was born in Niagara County, New York, in 1823, and was educated at Madison University. Having been three times a mem- ber of the State Legislature, be w a elected a Representative from New York to the Thirty-seventh Congress In 1865 he was returned as member of the Thirty-ninth ( as. — s 7. 527. ROBERT T VAN HORN was born in Pennsylvania, in L824, and ap- plied himself to the business of a printer. Having removed West. he be Mayor and Postmaster of Kansas City, Missouri. He served in th<^ Union army, during the civil war. as a lieutenant-colonel. Il>' was three years a member of the Missouri Senate. In 1865 he became a Representative in the Thirty-ninth I from Missouri PETER <;. VAN WINKLE was bora in the city of New Vork, in 1808 He removed to Parkersburg, Virginia, in 1835. He was a member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1850, and of the Wheeling Convention in L861. He aided in forming the Constitution of West Virginia in 1862 He became a member of the Legislature of that State at it- organization, and, in November, 1863, he was elected a United States Senator from W< -: Virginia fur the term ending in 1869. — 194. DANIEL W. VOORHEES was born in Indiana. September 26, 1828. He graduated at the Indiana Asbury University in 1849, and commi the practice of law in 1851. II- held the*office of United States Dia Attorney for three years, by appointment of President Buchanan. In he was elected a Representative to Congress from Indiana, and reelected in 1862 He appeared, in December, 1865, as a member of the Thirty-ninth < . repress, but remained only a short time, his seat having been successfully contested by Henry D. Washburn.— 568. BENJAMIN P. WADE was bora in Massachusetts, October, 27, 1800 Having removed to Ohio, he was admitted to the bar in l N i> He held sue- vely the positions of Justice of the Peace, Prosecuting Attorney, State Senator, and Circuit Judge. In 1851 he was elected a United State- Senator from Ohio, and lias been twice reelected, his third term ending in 1869. Q March, l v ''>7. he was elected President pro * mp ■ of the Senate and acting Vice-President of the United States.— 15, 50, 276, 283, 428, 4o4, •177. 190 ANDREW II WARD is a lawyer by profession, and is Represent- ative from the Sixth District of Kentucky to the Thirty-ninth Congress 509. HAMILTON WARD was bora in Salisbury, New York, in 1829. He studied law and settled at Belmont He was twice elected District Attorney for Allegheny County. In 1864 ho was elected a member of the Thirty- ninth Congress. — 306. BIOGR.J I'll I CI L INDEX. 611 SAMUEL L. WARNER was born in Connecticut, in 1829. Ihivinir pur- sued a course of study at the Yale and Harvard Law Schools, Ik- was ad- mitted e bar in 1853. Having served as member of the Connecticut Legislature and Mayor of Middletown, he was. in 1865, elected a member to I hirty-ninth Congress. — 507. KLIIIL B. WASHBURNE was lion, in Mainr. September 2:;. L816. Hav- studied law in Harvard University, he located at Galena, Illinois. In 1852 he was elected a Representative to the Thirty-third Congress, and has been reelected to each succeeding Congress. In the Thirty-ninth Congress he was the oldest member of the House in continuous service. — 30. HENRY D. WASHB1 RN was born in Vermont, in 1832. lie graduated at the New York State ami National Law School in 1853, and settled in Indi- ana, lie was soon after elected Auditor of Vermillion County, which position he held until the breaking out of the rebellion, when he raised a company for the service and was promoted to the command, as Colonel, of the ImIi In- diana regiment. He contested the seat in the Thirty ninth Congress held by D. W. Voorhees, and was declared by the Committee on Elections to be en- title! to the place. — 568. WILLIAM B. WASHBURN was horn in Massachusetts, in 1S20. He graduated at Yale College in 1S44. and subsequently devoted himself to man- ufacturing. In 1850 he was elected to the State Senate, and to the Lower House in 1854. In 1862 he was elected a Representative to Congress from Massachusetts, and was reelected in 1864 to the Thirty-ninth Congress. MARTIN WELKER was horn in Ohio, in 1819. He was admitted to the bar in L840. He served successively as Clerk and Judge of the Court of Com- mon Pleas, in 1857 he was elected Lieutenant-governor of Ohio. In 1864 he was elected a Representative to the Thirty-ninth Congress from Ohio. JOHN WENTWOTH was born in New Hampshire, in 1815. He gradu- ated at Dartmouth College, and in 1836 he settled in Chicago, Illinois. Ho conducted the '"Chicago Democrat," as editor and proprietor, for twenty-five years. In 1842 he was elected a Representative to Congress from Illinois, and was subsequently a member of the Twenty-ninth, Thirtieth, Thirty-first, and Thirty-second Congresses. After a considerable interval he was, in 1864, elected for the sixth term a Representative to Congress from Illinois. — 18, 556, 557. EELLIAN V. WHALEY was horn in New York, in 1821. When twenty-one years old he settled in Western Virginia, and devoted himself to the lumber and mercantile business, lie has been a member of the Thirty- seventh, Thirty-eighth, and Thirty-ninth Congresses from West Virginia. WATTMAN T. W1LLEY was born in Virginia, October 18, 1811. He graduated at Madison College in 1831, and came to the bar in 1833. He was for fourteen years clerk of county and circuit courts. He was a mem- em the thirtt-xixth coxa a ess. of the Convent I ■ amend the Constitution of Virginia in 1850. In rinter of 1860-61 waa a Delegate to the Richmond Convention. In I $61 he was elected a < ruted States Senator by the Legislature of West Vir rrinia. In 1864 he was reelected to the United States Senate for the ter « ending in 1*71.-458, lv",. [~<\ GEORGE II WILLIAM- was born in New Fork, in 1823. Saving been admitted to the bar, be emigrated to Iowa in 1844. He was Boon alter el< Judge of the First Judicial District of that State In L853 he was appointed by President Pierce Chief-Justice of the Territory of Oregon, and was re- appointed by President Buchanan in 1857. He was elected United States Senator from Oregon for the term commencing in 1865 ami ending in 1*71. — 393, 488, 528, 539, 540, 559. THOMAS WILLIAMS was horn in Pennsylvania. August 28, 1806. He graduated at Dickinson College in L825. Having studied law, be settled in Pittsburgh. In 1838, and thereafter, he was a member of the State Legis- lature for four successive terms. In I860 he was again in the Legislature. In 1862 he was elected a Representative from Pennsylvania to the Thirty- eighth Congress, and was reelected in 1864. HENRY WILSON' was born February 16, 1812, in New Hampshire. When twenty-one years old he went to Natick, Massachusetts, where he learned the art of shoemaking. In 1840 he was elected to the Legislature, serving four years in the Lower House and four years in the Senate, over which he presided two years. In l v ">"> he was elected United States Senator to succeed I'M ward Everett, and reelected in 1859. In W>1 he raised the 22d Massachusetts regiment, of which he became Colonel, lie served on General McClellan's stall' until the meeting of Congress in December. During the war he occupied the arduous and responsible position of Chairman of the Committee of Military Affairs. At the opening of the Thirty-ninth Congress he entered upon his third Senatorial term, which will expire in 1871. — 15, 95, 97, 101, 135, 213, 402, 410, 437, 435, 487, 591, 198, 532. JAMES F WILSON' was born at Newark. Ohio, in L828. lie removed to Iowa in 1853. In 1856 he was a member of the State Constitutional Convention. In 1857 he was elected to the State Legislature, and in 1859 to the State Senate. In 1861 he was President of the Senate, and was elected a Representative to the Thirty-seventh Congress for an unexpired term, lie was reelected in 1862 and in 1864.-31,51, 220, 239, 288, 325, 536. STEPHEN F. WILSON was born at Columbia, Pennsylvania. September 4, 1821. He received his education at Wellsboro Academy, where he subse- quently engaged for a short time in teaching. He finally became a lawyer, and was, in 1863, elected a State Senator; in 1864, chosen a Representative •in Pennsylvania to the Thirty-ninth Congress WILLIAM WTNDOM was born in Ohio, in 1827. He was admitted to the bar in 1850, and two years after removed to Minnesota. He wa# elected BIOGRAPHICAL LVD EX. 613 a Representative from Minnesota to the Thirty-sixth Congress, and has been reelected to each succeeding Congress. — 229. CHARLES II. WIN! 'I Kid) was born in Orange County, New York, in L822. Be studied law. and was admitted to the bar in 1846. From 1850 to 1856 he was District Attorney for Orange County. He was elected a Representative to the Thirty-eighth Congress from New York, and was, in 1864, reelected for a second term. — 20, 515. FREDERICK E. WOODBRIDGE was born in Vermont, August 29, 1818. He graduated at the University of Vermont in 1840, and was admitted to the bar in 1S42. Having served five years in the State Legislature and three years as State Auditor, he was, in 1863, elected a Representative to Congress from Vermont, and entered upon his second Congressional term in 1865. EDWIN R. V. WRIGHT was born at Hoboken, New Jersey, in IS 12, learned the trade of a printer, and in 1835 edited and published the "Jersey Blue." He studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1839. He was elected to the State Senate in 1843. He subsequently held for five years the office of District Attorney for Hudson County. In 1859 he was the Demo- cratic Candidate for Governor of New Jersey, and was defeated by a small majority, lie was elected a Representative from New Jersey to the Thirty- ninth Congress. — 363. WILLIAM W r RIGHT was born in Rockland County, New York, in 1791. In 1X23 he removed to Newark, New Jersey, and held the office of Mayor of that city for a number of years. He was a Representative in Congress four years, commencing in 1843. In 1853 he was elected United States Senator for the term ending in 1S59. In 1863 he was again elected to the Senate for the term ending in 1869. He died before the expiration of the term for which he was elected. RICHARD YATES was born in Kentucky, in 1818. Having removed to Illinois, he graduated at Illinois College, and entered the profession of law. After having repeatedly served in the State Legislature, he was a Represent- ative in Congress from 1851 to 1855. In 1861 he was elected Governor of Illinois for four years, and gave most efficient service to th^country in rais- ing troops for the army during the civil war. lie was electeoa United States Senator from Illinois for the term commencing in 1865, and ending in 1871. — 398, 461, 484, 491. 3S* A. V I 1ST ~* S VETERINARY PRACTICE, OR EXPLANATORY HORSE DOCTOR. Written in Plain and Common Language, for the Use ox" the Farmer Breeder, or Owner of the Eorse, to enable him to Treat Correctly and Successfully, all the Diseases to which the Horc-o i3 Liable. COPIOUSLY ILLUSTRATED BY CUTS AM) ENGRAYO EY JOHN NICHOLSON NAVIN. VETERINARY SURGEON. The Reasons why every Horse Owner should have the Explanatory Horse Doctor arc: 1st. B cause with it the life or limb of a valuable animal save 1. •j,l ! . ■ o reads can consult it at any moment, and apply or ad- lay. k tinic can be s ived, as without it, the horse may die with some aeu ,.. t0 r could 1>" brought from some distant town or city. ■ r can afford t.> buy it. and cannot ;o he m for one day would he i men forty times its c »st in n - ih the work, and get the very b the price of the ach call, to procure the services of a . may be unskillful, with little or no experience. the horse, (like man | is subject - services of a procured in many localities, only at t time \\\ w j that all discuses of the horse should be treated at the ear!:- ; .,,.,. the I y of a reliable work, that can be consulted W!l ,, ! : I i« to select, or purchase, the most hardy, kind and durable ling, &c. 1 ti aches how to tell the acre of the horse, so that a boy twelve years old may not be deceived. % ILLUSTRATED BY A SERIES OF BEAUTIFUL CUTS OF THE TEETH AS THEY APPEAR AT DIFFERENT ACES. It ia the only work on the subject adapted to the understanding of the public ral. only by subscription, through our duly appointed agents, at $3.o0 in cloth binding, and > iii library binding. EXTRA INDUCEMENTS OFFERED TO GOOD AGENTS. Address, for full particulars, ROACn & T1TISTLETHWAITE, Publishers, Indianapolis, Ind. LBJa'" uo BRARY OF CONGRESS