History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States

by William Horatio Barnes

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.