In fact and in purpose, then, the bill before the House is one to abolish slavery in the United States, and to enfranchise and elevate negroes, and to disfranchise and degrade white men; a bill to change the social and industrial systems and internal policy of eleven States; a bill to take from those States their inherent reserved constitutional right to regulate in their own way their internal policy, not inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States. It is a bill to punish treason without trial or conviction; a bill to confiscate private property without adequate compensation; in short, a bill to reconstruct States and make State constitutions, when in truth no States or their constitutions have been destroyed, or need reconstruction, unless by the voluntary action of their own people.
If this is a revolutionary Congress, you have a revolutionary power to pass this bill; but if it be, as I am bound by my oath of office to believe and assert, a Congress sitting under the Constitution of the United States, and having no powers outside of or unknown to it, then you cannot constitutionally pass this bill.
He stated further that the bill “embodies a spirit and purpose toward the Southern people which, if impolitic and vindictive one year ago, when the bill first came before the House, and when our enemy was far stronger and more defiant than now, is still more impolitic and vindictive at this time, when the minds of all good men are searching diligently for ways of reconciliation and peace.”
In conclusion he declared: “The Congress of the United States, the legislative power of the Union, and the Constitution, is asked by this bill to be the minister and executioner of the great revenge of section upon section, States North upon States South. For one, sir, I wash my hands of the deed.”[[359]]
The passages quoted convey no adequate idea of the able and comprehensive character of Mr. Edgerton’s speech. It was concerned not only with the subject under discussion, but extended to a rather searching examination of Republican professions in 1861 and the revolutionary practices of a later time. It was marked throughout by perfect temper, but was not on that account less effective. Any extension of time, however, even twenty minutes, was denied him by the majority.
At this point, February 21, Ashley withdrew a motion he had previously made to recommit the bill, and by authority of his committee withdrew the measure which was the original text and, in lieu thereof, introduced another. With this substitution the pending amendments fell. Representative Wilson desired his substitute to hold its original place. Messrs. Wilson, Kelley and Eliot then modified their amendments to the measure hitherto under discussion, and Ashley explained his action in a brief address.
He referred to the bill which at the preceding session failed to receive the President’s approval. Since then he had labored earnestly to conciliate members on his side of the House who had scruples about the measure as it originally passed, and, if possible, obtain a united vote in its favor. For that purpose he consented to a compromise in providing for the recognition of Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee. The conditions were not such as he would prescribe if those States stood alone. But in order to secure what he thought of paramount importance—universal suffrage to the liberated black men of the South—he consented to insert in the bill which he had proposed a few days previously, a conditional recognition of existing governments in the States of Louisiana and Arkansas, and the government then being organized in Tennessee.
Disappointed in his efforts to win the coöperation of Representatives who entertained practically the same opinions which he did in favor of universal suffrage for the colored man, and in favor of the early recognition of every Confederate State with a population sufficient to maintain a government, he now declined to offer his substitute. At the request and with the concurrence of his committee the bill of the preceding session was offered with some modifications. These alterations were to strike out all that the bill contained to which gentlemen had raised objection, in that it seemingly authorized the execution of State laws as they existed at the commencement of the rebellion. To make it perfectly clear what the committee intended, they had inserted a provision that the governor should execute only such laws as related to the protection of persons and property; that all laws inconsistent with the proposed enactment, and all laws recognizing the relation of master and slave, should not be enforced. The section which authorized the collection of taxes had been omitted. He preferred not to commit himself to a recognition of the Louisiana and Arkansas governments, unless he could secure what he thought of paramount importance in reorganizing the other States.