Mr. Sherman said: "In my judgment, the events that transpired yesterday are too fresh in the mind of every Senator not to have had some influence upon him, and I think it as well 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 not hold myself 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 competent 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 another 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 magistrate 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 considerable 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 "transcending in importance the question of the amendment of the Constitution, 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 Executive or in the minds of the people of this country; that Congress, under the circumstances of this case, with this attempted limitation of its powers with regard to its 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 exercise, the most full and plenary jurisdiction. We will judge for ourselves, not only upon credentials and the character of men and the position of men, but upon the position of the States which sent those men here. In other words, to use the language of the President 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 requirements have been complied with, and not he, and nobody but ourselves."
Mr. Fessenden 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 United States Government, yet having no existence as States with rights in the Union and rights to representation in Congress. "My judgment is," said he, "that we hold the power over the whole subject in our hands, that it is our duty to hold it in our hands, and to regard 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 supposed to have arisen out of the unexampled state of things through which we have passed."
On the 26th of February, Mr. Sherman addressed the Senate on the pending concurrent resolution. He approved the principle but doubted the expediency of now reäffirming it. "I regard it," said he, "as a mere straw in a storm, thrown in at an inopportune moment; the mere assertion of a naked right which has never yet been disputed, and never can be successfully; a mere assertion 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 and unworthy of his high office. A part of the speech he characterized 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 Representatives, 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 and 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 consciousness that one man bred under free institutions is 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 are 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."
Mr. Dixon addressed the Senate in opposition to the concurrent resolution, and in favor of the policy of the President. "It 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 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 represented by loyal men in Congress. It draws the true line of distinction between traitors and true men. It furnishes to the States lately in rebellion the strongest possible inducement to loyalty and fidelity to the Government. It 'makes treason odious,' by showing that while the traitor and the rebel are excluded from Congress, the loyal and the faithful are cordially received. It recognizes 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," Mr. 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 fit, without settling this question; leave it as it is; admit no member from Tennessee; and when you go through the States next fall which hold their elections for Congress, see 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 independence by resolving that Senators should not be admitted from rebel States until Congress should have declared them entitled to such representation. "Upon the question of credentials," said he, "this whole question is before the Senate; and it is for us 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?"
"I do," replied Mr. Dixon. "It is for the Senate, and not for Congress, to make the inquiry if a Senator from Tennessee in the supposed case presents himself."
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 Maximilian 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 him if the House of Representatives 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 jurymen 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 Pennsylvania Avenue, elected by nobody, as a member of this Senate; but we would commit perjury in doing it, and have no right to do it."
Mr. Trumbull made an extended reply, which assumed somewhat 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 pending, Mr. Nye, of Nevada, advocated its passage. He 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 this idea. A class that during its whole political life has aimed at a monopoly of wealth, a monopoly of 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 bitter 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 back and labor as industriously to disabuse the minds of your constituencies as you labored to mislead and impose upon them. Tell them that the Union Government always was and never can be any thing else than a just Government. Tell them that the Constitution has become the acknowledged sovereign, and that it presides in both houses of Congress. Inform them, while you 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 encouragement only prolonged the conflict and added to Southern disaster. 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 bent on adopting and throwing around it all the safeguards and precautions possible; and that your admission just now, and your alliance with Northern sympathizers, would not be propitious in raising the value of our public securities. While you are conferring with your constituents, you may as well repeat to them the common political axiom that Representatives are elected to represent their constituents, and that it is not believed at the seat of Government that a disloyal constituency would make such a mistake as to send loyal Representatives to Congress. In short, you may as well say to your people that, as Congress represents the loyalty of the nation, South as well as North, and has much important work on hand, some of it requiring a two-thirds majority, it is not deemed wholly prudent to part with that majority out of mere comity to men from whom no assistance could be expected. Finally, by way of closing the suggestive instructions, you may give your constituents to understand that, as you went out of Congress rebel end foremost, you will not probably get into those vacant seats over yonder except that you come back Union end foremost."
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 suspend 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 suspended, 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 take away 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 inaugurated, and their relation to their sister States, and their consequent relation to the Government of the United States, is the same relation in which they stood to both when the insurrection was inaugurated. 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 of this proposition a newspaper article purporting to give secession resolutions drawn up by Mr. Wade, and passed at a meeting held at Cleveland in 1859, which was presided over by Joshua E. Giddings.
This called forth an answer from Mr. Wade, who said: "The Senator from Maryland called me in question for having been present at a meeting which he affirmed was held in Cleveland some seven years ago by persons called 'Sons of Liberty,' and he alleged that I there consented to certain resolutions that were passed which favored the doctrine of secession, and that I was chairman of the committee which reported them. Sir, the charge is a total forgery so far as I am concerned. I never was at any such meeting of the Sons of Liberty or any other sons. I never uttered such a sentiment in my life; I 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. During 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 participants in or apologists for that sentiment. I am perfectly aware that a war is made—and I am willing to meet it anywhere—upon what are called Radicals of the country, and I am one of them. In olden times I 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 I have read or know it, there never has been a time when parties were so organized on radical principles of justice and right. The party with whom I act appeal to no expediency, to none of your political policies; we dig down to the granite of eternal truth, and there we stand, and they who assail us have to assail the great principles of the Almighty, for our principles are chained to his throne, and are as indestructible as the Almighty himself. I want no warfare with any body; but if you will make war upon such principles as we have adopted, it is the worse for you. You can not prevail.
"I have been in these political warfares for a long time; I claim to be an old soldier in them. I stood in this Senate when there were not five men with me to support me, and then I rose here and told those who were inveighing like demons against the principles that they called abolitionism, that I was an Abolitionist. 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 principles 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 capacity 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? None 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 particular 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 reädmitted to all their constitutional 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 defense, if they have any. That according to the Constitution and laws all the States are still in the Union; that secession ordinances 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 compelling them either to admit negroes to the right of suffrage or to give up a share of their representation, which is theirs by law and the last amendment to the Constitution. That the resolution now before us from the same committee is also revolutionary and destructive, being an attempt to suspend the Constitution and laws in regard to representation in Congress over eleven States of the Union until Congress shall see fit to restore them. It is a declaration on the part of the members of the present House and Senate, that having the means of keeping these States from being represented here, they are going to do so as long as they please; that no one of these measures can be justified as a punishment for the rebellion; that the Constitution forbids them as bills 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 difficulties: "There is," said he, "a provision in the Constitution which requires the President to communicate to the two houses of Congress information as to the state of the Union, and to recommend to them such measures "as he shall deem proper and expedient. What does 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 Senators 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 different bodies of men both claiming to be the Senate, which is the true Senate. If the Southern members and those who are for admitting them to their seats constitute a majority of the whole Senate, the President has a right—and, by the Eternal! 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, as the true Senate. And then what would become of you gentlemen? Oh, if the lion of the Hermitage, and that great statesman, the sage of Ashland, were here in the seat of power, how soon would they settle this question! They would say to, and they would inspire those to whom they spoke, 'You Southern men are kept out of your seats by violence, by revolution, against the Constitution, against right; the Union is dissolved, the Government is brought to an end by keeping the Senators from eleven States out of their seats when the Constitution expressly states that every State shall have two Senators.'
"There is no plainer principle of constitutional law than that the President has the right to ascertain and decide what body of men is the Senate and what the House of Representatives when there are two bodies of men claiming to be each. It is his right to do so, and the people of America will sustain him in the noble and manly and patriotic performance of his duty in determining the identity of the true House. It ought to have been done at the beginning of this session. When a petty clerk took upon himself to read the list of the Representatives of the people of the United States, and to keep the Representatives of eleven States out of their seats, the Constitution guaranteeing to them those seats for the benefit of their constituents and country, that subordinate never ought to have been tolerated for one day in the perpetration of so great an outrage. Whenever Andrew Johnson chooses to exercise his high function, his constitutional right of saying to the Southern Senators, 'Get together with the Democrats and the Conservatives of the Senate, and if you constitute a majority, I will recognize you as the Senate of the United States,' what then will become of you gentlemen? You will quietly come in and form a part of that Senate."
Mr. Doolittle opposed the passage of the resolution. Referring to the plan proposed by Mr. Davis, he said: "If such a thing should happen—which God in his mercy, I hope, will always prevent—that the Senate should be divided, and one portion should go into one room, and another into another, each claiming to be the Senate, I suppose the House of Representatives could direct its clerk to go to one body and not go to the other, and I do not know but the President of the United States would have the power, in case of such a division, to send his private secretary with messages to one body and not send them to the other. Perhaps that might occur; but it is one of those cases that are not to be supposed or to be tolerated."
Mr. Wilson advocated the resolution: "The nation," said he, "is divided into two classes; that the one class imperiously demands the immediate and unconditional admission into these halls of legislation of the rebellious States, rebel end foremost; that the other class seeks their admission into Congress, at an early day, loyal end foremost. He would hear, too, the blended voices of unrepentant rebels and rebel sympathizers and apologists mingling in full chorus, not for the restoration of a broken Union, for the unity and indivisibility of the republic has been assured on bloody fields of victory, but for the restoration to these vacant chairs of the 'natural leaders' of the South."
Referring to Mr. Davis' programme for the President's interference with the Senate, Mr. Wilson said: "Sir, there was a time when a Senator who should have said what we have recently heard on this floor would have sunk into his seat under the withering rebuke of his associates. No Senator or Representative has a right to tell us what the Executive will do. The President acts upon his own responsibility. We are Senators, this is the Senate of the United States, and it becomes us to maintain the rights and the dignity of the Senate of the United States. The people demand that their Senators and Representatives shall enact the needed measures to restore, at the earliest possible day, the complete practical relations of the seceded States to the National Government, and protect the rights and liberties of all the people, without regard to color, race, or descent."
Mr. Fessenden, having the resolution in charge, made a second speech, in which he answered objections which had been urged, and defended the Committee of Fifteen against imputations of a disposition to delay the work of reconstruction.
Mr. McDougal took occasion to say a few words against the resolution. He said: "I would not dare to vote for this proposition, because I have some regard for the great Judge who lives above. The question pending now, as practically useless as it will be as rule, is yet mischievous. It is in the way of teaching bad precedents, false law, unsound loyalty. These things are like the worms that eat into the majestic oaks which are used to build vessels to ride the sea, and decay their strength, so that they fall down and make wrecks of navies."
Mr. Hendricks had moved to amend the resolution by inserting the words "inhabitants of" after the word "States." This amendment was rejected. The Senate then proceeded to take the vote on the concurrent resolution, which was passed—yeas, 29; nays, 18.
Thus the opinion of Congress was established, by a large majority, that the two houses should act conjointly upon the whole question of the representation of States, and that this question was entirely independent, of the Executive.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENT—IN THE HOUSE.
A Constitutional Amendment Proposed and Postponed —
Proposition by Mr. Stewart — The Reconstruction Amendment
— Death of its Predecessor Lamented — Opposition to the
Disfranchisement of Rebels — "The Unrepentent Thirty-three"
— Nine-tenths Reduced to One-twelfth — Advice to Congress
— The Committee Denounced — Democratic and Republican
Policy Compared — Authority without Power — A Variety of
Opinions — An Earthquake Predicted — The Joint Resolution
Passes the House.
While the joint resolution proposing a modification of the basis of representation was the subject of consideration in the Senate, a constitutional amendment relating to the rights of citizens was made the topic of brief discussion in the House. It had been previously introduced and referred to the Committee of Fifteen. From this committee it was reported back by Mr. Bingham. It was proposed in the following form:
"ARTICLE—. That Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper to secure to the citizens of each State all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States, and to all persons in the several States equal protection in the rights of life, liberty, and property."
This proposition was introduced on the 26th of February, and was debated during the sessions of three successive days.
Many members of the legal profession saw in the final clause a dangerous centralization of power. It was considered objectionable as seeming to authorize the General Government to interfere with local laws 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 to postpone the amendment until April.
After this postponement, and the failure of the amendment relating to the basis of representation to pass the Senate, the subject of reconstruction 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 interest 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 Constitution 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, (including all qualified to vote in 1860,) a general amnesty shall be proclaimed as to all who engaged in the rebellion."
This proposition had peculiar significance, since it emanated from a gentleman who, though elected as a Republican, had ever since the veto of the Freedmen's Bureau acted with the Conservatives. Mr. Sumner, "with open arms," welcomed the Senator from Nevada as "a new convert to the necessity of negro suffrage." Mr. Wilson was thankful to the author of this proposition for placing the whole question "on the basis of universal liberty, universal justice, universal suffrage, and universal amnesty." The resolution was referred to the 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 State deprive any person of life; liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
"SEC. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not 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, the 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 1870, 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 for 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 legislation, the provisions of this article."
This proposed amendment to the Constitution was accompanied by two bills, 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 be admitted as members of Congress. 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. I 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 and see whether we can not devise some way to overcome the united forces of self-righteous Republicans and unrighteous Copper-heads. It will not do for those who for thirty years have 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 severity 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 disfranchise, 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 prevent indefinitely a complete restoration of the Union, and perpetuate 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 recognition 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."
To this inference, Mr. Garfield replied: "I am glad to see this first section here, which proposes to hold over every American citizen without regard to color, the protecting shield of law. The gentleman who has just taken his seat undertakes to show that because we propose to vote for this section, we therefore acknowledge 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 whenever 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, beyond the reach of the plots and machinations of any party, and fix it in the serene sky, in the eternal firmament of the Constitution, 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 here."
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."
Mr. Thayer, while favoring the proposed amendment in all other particulars, was opposed to the third section. "I think," said he, "that it imperils the whole measure under consideration. What will continue to be the condition of the country if you adopt this feature of the proposed plan? Continual distraction, continued agitation, continued bickerings, continued opposition to the law, and it will be well for the country if a new insurrection shall not spring from its bosom."
Mr. Boyer denounced the proposition as "an ingenious scheme to keep out the Southern States, and to prevent the restoration of the Union until after the next Presidential election."
Mr. Kelley, if 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. He especially defended the third section. "This measure," said he, "does not propose to punish them; on the contrary, it is an act of amnesty, and proposes, after four years, to reinvest them with all their 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 personalities 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 this 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 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, that it would disfranchise nine-tenths of all the voters of the South, Mr. Broomall replied: "This is a grand mistake. There were in 1860 one million one hundred and twenty thousand voters in those eleven States. We may take seven hundred and fifty thousand as the number of individuals in the South who rendered aid and comfort to the enemy, not counting the comparatively 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 in the South to be disfranchised 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 does not embrace the men who were compelled to serve in the army. It would be fair to say three hundred thousand of these people belonged to the unwilling class, who were forced into the army by rigid conscription laws and the various contrivances of the leading rebels. This will leave two hundred thousand; and I say now it is utterly 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 in every twelve."
Mr. Shanklin opposed the amendment as intended "to disfranchise the people of the Southern States who have gone into this rebellion, until the party in power could fasten and rivet the chains of oppression for all time to come, and hedge themselves in power, that they may rule and control those people at will."
Mr. Shanklin closed his speech with the following advice to Congress: "Discharge your joint Committee on Reconstruction; abolish your Freedmen's Bureau; repeal your Civil Rights Bill, and admit all the delegates from the seceded States to their seats in Congress, who have been elected according to the laws of the country and possess the constitutional qualification, and all will be well."
Mr. Raymond spoke in favor of the amendment, except the 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. Raymond 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 'voluntarily adhered to the insurrection;' not at the outset 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 opposition 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 excluding "all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection" 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 recommended. "The committee," said he, "report no facts whatever, and give us no conclusion. They simply report amendments to the Constitution. 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 an empire? I say they were charged with no such duty. The resolution can not fairly be construed as giving to the committee any such power, any such jurisdiction. The committee stands resisting the restoration of this Union, and I hope that 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 show how the proposition before the House "traverses the policy of the Democratic party with reference to the reconstruction of the Government." 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 Government had any right to canvass those institutions, or to consider the right of the Territory to be recognized as a State.
"Now, sir, from that doctrine, which probably had its origin in the resolutions of 1798, the whole of their policy to this day has legitimately followed. First, we saw its results in the doctrine of Mr. Buchanan, announced in 1860, that, while the Constitution did not provide for or authorize the secession of a State from this Union, there was no power in the existing Government to compel a State to remain in the Union against its own judgment. Following that doctrine, they come legitimately to the conclusion of to-day, in which they are supported, as I understand, by the President of the United States upon the one side, and, as I know, by the testimony of Alexander H. Stephens, late Vice-President of the so-called Confederacy, upon the other. That doctrine, is that these eleven States have to-day, each for itself, 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 defined 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 section, 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 period 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 county and town officers, but for members 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 amendment except the third. Of this he said: "Though it seems just 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 importance to the country."
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 open to the objections which then controlled his vote. In advocating the third section, he said: "It is clear, upon adjudged law, that the States lately in rebellion, and the inhabitants of those States, by force of the civil war, and of the Union triumph in that war, so far have lost their rights to take part in the Government of the Union that some action on the part of Congress is required to restore those rights. Pardon and amnesty given by the President can not restore them. Those men can not vote for President or for Representatives in Congress until, in some way, 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 Government, 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 States?"
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 laws. Upon this registry list you may place the names of men who are to be disqualified, and you may also have the names of all who are 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, you can resort to the ordinary process applicable to a trial in a contested election case in either body, as to whether he has been elected by the men who were entitled to elect him."
Thursday, May 10th, was the last day of this discussion in the House. Mr. Randall first took the floor and spoke in opposition to the joint resolution. To the friends of the measure he said: "It is intended to secure what you most wish: an entire disagreement to the whole scheme by the eleven Southern States, and a continued omission of representation on this floor."
Mr. Strouse, in opposing the amendment, occupied most of his time in reading an editorial from the New York Times, which he characterized as "sound, patriotic, statesmanlike, and just."
Mr. Strouse expressed, as his own opinion, "that the States are, 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 conscientiously 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 deliberations of matters of so much moment to every citizen."
Mr. Banks regarded the pending amendment as the most important question which could be presented to the House or to the country. "It is my belief," said he, "that reörganization 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 heretofore 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 population 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 necessary 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.
"An enemy to the Government, a man who avows himself an enemy of 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 friends of the Government.
"A pardon does not confer or restore political power. A general act of amnesty differs from an individual pardon only in the fact that it applies to a class of offenders who can not be individually 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 consent 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 is 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 requisite 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 war; 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 as loyal and true to the Government as the people of any portion of the East or West.
"The people knew that it was the rich man's war and the poor man's fight. The legislation of the insurgent States exempted, to a great degree, the rich men and 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 the 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 had 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 governments of the States to the Union, the recognition of the loyal people, and the disfranchisement of the implacable and unchangeable public enemies of the Union, and the creation of State governments upon the sound and enduring basis of common interest and common affection."
Mr. 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 justice, 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 ægis of the nation'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 provisions, 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 disunion 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 Government 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 the throes of an earthquake, until its tragedy will summon the inhabitants of the world to witness its dreadful shock.
"In the third section, you undertake," said 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 condition 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 to 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 children fallen in the great struggle for the maintenance of the Union, having already conformed her constitution and laws to every provision of this amendment, will at once, upon its submission 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 that 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 assurance to all the world that, for the defense of the republic, it was 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 country 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 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 speech for freedom was being made here; when weapons were drawn, and Barksdale's bowie-knife gleamed before our eyes. Would you have these men back again so soon to reënact those scenes? Wait until I am gone, I pray you. I want not to go through, it 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 remarks, Mr. Stevens moved the previous question.
Mr. 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 nays:
YEAS—Messrs. Alley, Allison, Ames, Anderson, Delos R.
Ashley, James M. Ashley, Baker, Baldwin, Banks, Barker,
Baxter, Beaman, Benjamin, Bidwell, Bingham, Blaine, Blow,
Boutwell, Bromwell, Broomall, Buckland, Bundy, Reader W.
Clarke, Sidney Clarke, Cobb, Conkling, Cook, Cullom,
Darling, Davis, Dawes, Defrees, Delano, Deming, Dixon,
Dodge, Donnelly, Driggs, Dumont, Eckley, Eggleston, Eliot,
Farnsworth, Perry, Garfield, Grinnell, Griswold, Abner C.
Harding, Hart, Hayes, Henderson, Higby, Holmes, Hooper,
Hotchkiss, Asahel W. Hubbard, Chester D. Hubbard, Demas
Hubbard, James R. Hubbell, Hulburd, James Humphrey,
Ingersoll, Jenckes, Julian, Kasson, Kelley, Kelso, Ketcham,
Kuykendall, Laflin, George V. Lawrence, William Lawrence,
Loan, Longyear, Lynch, Marston, McClurg, McIndoe, McKee,
McRuer, Mercur, Miller, Moorhead, Morrill, Morris, Moulton,
Myers, Newell, O'Neill, Orth, Paine, Patterson, Perham,
Pike, Plants, Price, William H. Randall, Raymond, Alexander
H. Rice, John H. Rice, Rollins, Sawyer, Schenck, Scofield,
Shellabarger, Spalding, Stevens, Stilwell, Thayer, Francis
Thomas, John L. Thomas, Trowbridge, Upson, Van Aernam, Burt
Van Horn, Robert T. Van Horn, Ward, Warner, Elihu B.
Washburne, Henry D. Washburn, William B. Washburn, Welker,
Williams, James F. Wilson, Stephen F. Wilson, Windom,
Woodbridge, and the Speaker—128.
NAYS—Messrs. Ancona, Bergen, Boyer, Chanler, Coffroth,
Dawson, Eldridge, Finck, Glossbrenner, Goodyear, Grider,
Aaron Harding, Harris, Kerr, Latham, Le Blond, Marshall,
McCullough, Niblack, Phelps, Radford, Samuel J. Randall,
Ritter, Rogers, Ross, Rosseau, Shanklin, Sitgreaves, Smith,
Strouse, Taber, Taylor, Thornton, Trimble, Whaley, Winfield,
and Wright—37.
Applause on the floor and in the galleries greeted the announcement that two-thirds of the House having voted in the affirmative 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 opposite 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 expressed 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.