The defeat of Davis now appeared complete, but the struggle was not to be abandoned without another effort. On the following day, February 22, 1865, Mr. Wilson from the Committee on the Judiciary reported House Bill No. 740, to establish the supremacy of the Constitution in the insurrectionary States, with a substitute which provided that neither the people nor the legislature of any rebellious State should elect Representatives or Senators to Congress until the President had proclaimed that armed hostility to the United States within such State had ceased; nor until the people of such State had adopted a constitution not repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United States; nor until by law of Congress such State had been declared entitled to representation in the Congress of the United States.

The authority for this bill he professed to find in the fourth section of Article I. of the Constitution, which reads as follows:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may, at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.

Mr. Wilson was somewhat embarrassed in defending his bill. Dawes and Mallory exposed its weakness, and Representative Kernan, of New York, believed it would put it in the power of the Executive to say whether States should be represented in Congress. Fernando Wood observed that neither by that bill nor any other could either House of Congress be deprived of the right to pass upon the election, returns and qualifications of members.[[363]]

Mr. Ashley at this point moved to amend the substitute offered by the Committee on the Judiciary by striking out all after the enacting clause and inserting the reconstruction bill that was tabled the day before. When a point of order was raised against its introduction the Speaker said that there was an important amendment; the word “white” having been inserted before the expression “male citizen,” thus restricting the class to be enrolled by the United States marshal. Mr. Kelley would amend it by striking out the word “white.” To this the Ohio member had no personal objection; indeed, he was abreast of Mr. Kelley in the matter of the suffrage: the only restriction he would impose being that of intelligence. Ashley appears, however, to have regarded himself as but the mouthpiece of his committee by whose authority he had only a few months before inserted a provision in his reconstruction bill to recognize the Louisiana and Arkansas governments, though he expressly declared on a subsequent occasion that he was opposed to such recognition.

By a vote of 80 to 65 the bill and its amendments was again laid on the table. Thirty-seven members abstained from voting; fourteen Republicans voted with the Democrats.[[364]] This action was taken on the 22d of February, 1865; the session closed on the 4th of March following without any further attempt to pass the bill. Before the vote was taken Ashley stated his sentiments candidly. He wanted a record made on the question. “I do not expect,” said he, “to pass this bill now. At the next session, when a new Congress fresh from the people shall have assembled, with the nation and its Representatives far in advance of the present Congress, I hope to pass even a better bill. Sir, I know that our loyal people will never be guilty of the infamy of inviting the blacks to unite with them in fighting our battles, and after our triumph—a triumph which we never could have achieved but for their generous coöperation and aid—deny those loyal blacks political rights while consenting that pardoned but unrepentant white rebels shall again be clothed with the entire political power of these States.”[[365]] The desire to obtain negro suffrage explains the inconsistent course of Representative Ashley throughout these debates.

By a singular method of abridging history Mr. Blaine in his Twenty Years of Congress passes without observation the attempt to revive the “pocketed” bill, though it was during its discussion that there was for the first time unmistakably revealed the existence of a schism in the Republican party.

IX
THE ELECTORAL VOTE OF LOUISIANA

A preceding chapter has noticed the result of the Presidential election of 1864. It was thought proper, however, to reserve for separate treatment the various questions presented by the participation in that contest of Louisiana and Tennessee, two States reorganized under Executive auspices. On the introduction by Mr. Wilson of a joint resolution declaring certain named States not entitled to representation in the Electoral College, the entire subject came before the House soon after the meeting of Congress in December.

The proposed resolution was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. On the following day, December 20, 1864, it was reported, ordered to be printed and recommitted. Under the operation of the previous question it passed the House on January 30 succeeding. Its preamble, which was favorably considered at the same time, declared that “the inhabitants and local authorities of the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee rebelled against the Government of the United States, and have continued in a state of armed rebellion for more than three years, and were in a state of armed rebellion on the 8th of November, 1864.”