By unanimous consent of the House Thaddeus Stevens, on December 8, offered resolutions distributing the President’s message. To the Committee on the Rebellious States was referred so much of it as was alleged to relate “to the duty of the United States to guaranty a republican form of government to the States in which the governments recognized by the United States have been abrogated or overthrown.”[[348]]
Nothing whatever in the message or the accompanying documents related to any such duty on the part of the United States, and the resolution assumed such a recommendation, no doubt, for the purpose of bringing the subject before Congress. One week later, Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, reported a bill, on the subject of Stevens’s resolution, which was read twice, ordered to be printed and returned to the Committee. On January 12 succeeding Representative Eliot, of Massachusetts, gave notice of his intention to offer at the proper time an amendment to the bill in charge of Mr. Ashley. No objection having been made, it was ordered to be printed. This was, in fact, a substitute for the bill reported by the Ohio member, and provided “that no State engaged in rebellion against the Government of the United States shall be allowed to resume its political relations with the Government of the United States until by the action of the loyal citizens within the limits of the same a State constitution shall be ordained and established, republican in form, forever prohibiting involuntary servitude within the State, and guarantying to all persons freedom and equality of rights before the law.” Its second section provided “that the State of Louisiana shall be permitted to renew its political relations with the Government of the United States under the constitution adopted by the convention assembled at New Orleans on the 6th of April, 1864.”[[349]]
That some of the more influential among the radical members desired to avoid, if possible, a controversy with the President may be fairly inferred from a letter of Charles Sumner, written December 27, 1864, to Doctor Lieber. Among other things the Senator says: “I have presented to the President the duty of harmony between Congress and the Executive. He is agreed. It is proposed to admit Louisiana (which ought not to be done), and at the same time pass the reconstruction bill for all the other States, giving the electoral franchise to ‘all citizens’ without distinction of color. If this arrangement is carried out, it will be an immense political act.”[[350]] A communication to John Bright, written a few days after the above, January 1, 1865, confirms this view. On that occasion Mr. Sumner said: “The President is exerting every force to bring Congress to receive Louisiana under the Banks government. I do not believe Louisiana is strong enough in loyalty and freedom for an independent State. The evidence on this point seems overwhelming. I have discussed it with the President, and have tried to impress on him the necessity of having no break between him and Congress on such questions. Much as I am against the premature recognition of Louisiana, I will hold my peace if I can secure a rule for other States, so that we may be saved from daily anxiety with regard to their condition.”[[351]] These passages explain the amendment to the revived bill. Sumner was willing to remain a neutral spectator of the debates on the recognition of Louisiana provided the reorganization of the remaining States should be made on the lines indicated by Congress.
On January 16, Ashley’s bill was reached in the regular order of business; by direction of the Committee on the Rebellious States, it was offered as a substitute for the original measure, from which it differed in one very important particular. It expressly recognized the loyal governments of both Louisiana and Arkansas. By unanimous consent the proposed enactment, considered as an original bill, was offered for the plan submitted by Henry Winter Davis at the preceding session.
Representative William D. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, would amend the clause providing for the enrollment of “all the white male citizens of the United States” by inserting the words “and all other male citizens of the United States who may be able to read the Constitution thereof.” Mr. Eliot then introduced the amendment of which he had previously given notice. By Representative Arnold another amendment was offered to that of Eliot.
Judge Kelley opened the debate by declaring that indemnity for the past the victors in the war could not hope to obtain; they could, however, demand security for the future. In a very long speech he discussed the status of the negro in the early days of the Republic; this portion of his address was concluded with the remark that his amendment did not contemplate that the entire mass of people of African descent, degraded and brutalized by laws and customs, be immediately clothed with all the rights of citizenship, but only those so far fitted by education for its judicious exercise as were able to read the Constitution and the laws of the United States. This, indeed, he admitted, was only an entering wedge and was to be regarded as an aid to their improvement; when sufficiently advanced they were to be endowed with every right necessary to their protection. A strong plea was made to confer the suffrage on the colored man; otherwise, asked the Pennsylvania member, how will it be possible to prevent his subjugation? He would not rely on men’s abstract sense of justice, for that had not prevented outrages in the past. Justice should be embodied in laws and constitutions while it was in the power of Congress to do so. That body was to determine who should select delegates to the conventions that were to frame governments for the insurgent States. The Union minorities in the South required the political support of every loyal man in their communities. It was the power, he reminded Representatives, not the spirit of the rebellion that Federal armies were overthrowing. In conclusion he declared himself in favor of conferring the suffrage on “every man who fights or pays,” a doctrine which he ascribed to Jefferson, in whose party he said he had been trained.[[352]]
Mr. Eliot, who spoke on January 17, regretted that he had not been able to support the amended bill reported from the select committee. Partly because of the interest, he said, which his friend Henry Winter Davis took in the subject he came to its consideration prepossessed in its favor. The provisions of the measure passed at the preceding session, however, were not then discussed. There were strong reasons for action at that time which no longer existed to the same extent. There was time enough on the present occasion, January, 1865, to make it more perfect and more practicable than the plan offered by the committee.
Entering upon an examination of the bill he declared that its terms were peremptory; eleven States were in rebellion, and by the first section the President was called upon to appoint for each of them a provisional governor. Such appointments were to be made when the measure became a law. Except in Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee these appointments would be not only useless but a needless source of expense, and though section fifteen recognized the governments established in the two former, the machinery of the bill would be applied to all the States in rebellion.
It imposed upon the several governors proposed to be appointed executive duties which they could not assume until the power of the United States had vindicated itself within those States; there were other duties which they should not be required to perform. They were to see that the laws which were in force in that section in 1860 should be faithfully executed, with no knowledge on the part of the House of the import of those laws. Why should Congress assume responsibility for enforcing the black code? Why demand the enforcement, he asked, of minute police regulations in States where complexion appointed or reduced punishment? Other laws were specified, such as those punishing the circulation of books or writings advocating human rights, laws requiring the removal from those States of free persons of color, prohibiting them from engaging in business, and punishing by the lash upon suspicion of false testimony and before conviction. There was a law, he said, in one of those States requiring the imprisonment of free colored sailors in her ports.[[353]] These provisions and many others of the same tenor were contained in the statute books of those States in 1860 and had been enforced. The penalty differed according to color; offences when committed by a white man were punished in one way, and when committed by colored men in another way. The provisional governor was charged with the faithful execution of such laws.
The provision for the assessment and collection of taxes he characterized as a remarkable proposition; they were to be imposed without representation, without any persons at the national capital to enlighten Congress on the subject; they were to be laid without the knowledge of the parties concerned or the parties to be affected.