Cowan, entering again into the discussion, said: “We are bound by the Constitution to preserve the Union and to preserve the rights of the people under the Union; not merely the rights of a majority, but the rights of the people, of all the people, and of any number of the people however small. What are we to do? A minority of the people come forward and say, ‘If you aid us for a while we can preserve this State and keep her in the Union.’ ‘But no,’ according to the doctrine advanced here, ‘there must be a majority of you before we can recognize you as in the Union.’... That will be very poor encouragement for the loyal men of the rebel States to try and bring back their people to reason.” The Pennsylvania Senator was one of the few who adhered to the opinion that the masses of men at the South were not disloyal; that it was a leaders’ rebellion.[[383]]
Sherman, of Ohio, described the scene in the joint convention of 1856 when Humphrey Marshall wanted to speak and Mr. Mason, president of the Senate, refused to recognize him. Speaker Banks, however, did recognize him; upon this, Mason and others left the convention, and confusion ensued; that, Mr. Sherman believed, was a reason why the resolution should be disposed of.[[384]]
Mr. Wade said: “About a year ago Congress, anticipating that such questions as this might arise, in my judgment very wisely framed a law and passed it through both branches with the hope of settling this matter in advance. That law was made upon great deliberation in both bodies of Congress: it received a very large vote in each House. It was very proper in my judgment that Congress should fix the matter then, because everybody could anticipate that a question of the most serious danger to the Republic might arise in the then approaching Presidential election, which might endanger the stability of our Union, and which might under certain circumstances precipitate these Northern States into a civil war. Apprehending that such a question might arise, Congress wisely, in my judgment, provided against it; but the President did not agree with them, and he vetoed their bill, leaving the question open with all its dangers, which, thank God, have not arisen.”
The President, added Mr. Wade, chose to pocket the bill, “and, as I suppose, he did it in defence of the proclamation which he had put forth, declaring that whenever a tenth part of the people of a State would come back, he would recognize them as the State and as part and parcel of this Government—a proposition which, with all my respect for the Chief Magistrate, I am bound to say is the most absurd and impracticable that ever haunted the imagination of a statesman.... And I must say of that proclamation of the President that it was the most contentious, the most anarchical, the most dangerous proposition that was ever put forth for the government of a free people.
“... I had a conversation with the now Vice-President-elect of the United States on that subject, and with other gentlemen on the Union side in the Southern States, and I do not know of one of them who was not filled with the deepest apprehension that if this principle should prevail they would be annihilated by the nine tenths.”[[385]]
As to permitting citizens of Louisiana who were serving in the army and navy to vote in the election of February 22, 1864, Mr. Doolittle observed: “We have done the same thing in Wisconsin, in Ohio, in Pennsylvania, in New York, all growing out of exigencies which have occurred since this rebellion began, passing laws, authorizing men, although in the Army of the United States, still to take part in the elections, providing that they should not be deprived of their rights of citizenship because they had enlisted in the Army to bear all the sacrifices which are necessary to defend their country in this struggle. And, sir, I maintain that there was nothing wrong in this.”[[386]] Even if it were wrong, only 808 soldiers, he asserted, participated in the election. A separate registry of this vote had been kept by General Banks. So far, therefore, from being a military usurpation it was an attempt of the President to lay down the military power. This he was endeavoring in good faith to do.
After a somewhat excited defence of the Administration by Senator Doolittle, and severe attacks on both President Lincoln and General Banks by Mr. Powell and others, Ten Eyck’s motion to strike out Louisiana from the joint resolution was defeated, February 3, 1865, by a vote of 22 to 16.[[387]] Lane’s motion immediately after to strike out the preamble, which would leave only an unmeaning resolution, was lost by a vote of 30 nays to 12 yeas.[[388]]
Senator Harris proposed to amend Mr. Collamer’s substitute by resolving, “That it is inexpedient to determine the question as to the validity of the election of electors in the said States of Tennessee and Louisiana, and that in counting the votes for President and Vice-President the result be declared as it would stand if the votes of the said States were counted, and also as it would stand if the votes of the said States were excluded, such result being the same in either case.” By nearly the same majority this proposition also was voted down without much discussion.[[389]]
Reverdy Johnson, who favored the House resolution as amended by the Committee on the Judiciary, did not think the rebellious States were out of the Union, and asserted that there was no power in any branch of Government to declare war against a State. Referring to the Whiskey Insurrection in Washington’s administration, he said that Congress passed no act declaring it at an end. The President declared it. It ended itself. The insurrectionists laid down their arms, and expressed willingness to yield obedience to the United States; that ended the insurrection and disbanded the Federal forces, “and that happening, the State of Pennsylvania, every part of it, stood exactly in the relation, for all purposes, in which the State and every part of it stood before the insurrection was commenced.”[[390]]
Mr. Collamer said that the real point in Senator Johnson’s argument was whether Congress had anything to do in the reorganization or reëstablishment of those States. Mr. Johnson, continued the Senator from Vermont, seemed to think not. On resuming his speech, February 4, 1865, he inquired: “When will, and when ought, Congress to admit these States as being in their normal condition? When they see that they furnish evidence of it. It is not enough that they stop their hostility and are repentant. They should present fruits meet for repentance. They should furnish to us by their actions some evidence that the condition of loyalty and obedience is their true condition again, and Congress must pass upon it; otherwise we have no securities. It is not enough that they lay down their arms. Our courts should be established, our taxes should be gathered, our duties should be collected in those States; and before they come here to perform their duties or privileges again as members of this Union, they should place themselves in an attitude showing to us that they have truly taken that position, and we should pass upon it; and I insist that the President, making peace with them, if you please, by surceasing military operations, does not alter their status until Congress passes upon it.... I believe that when reëstablishing the condition of peace with that people, Congress, representing the United States, has power, in ending this war as any other war, to get some security for the future.”