“What, in effect, do the Senator from Massachusetts and my colleague propose? To place outside of the Constitution, and to govern with unlimited power, eleven States and ten million people, nearly one third of all the States and people of the United States, without any representation.”[150]
Mr. Howe replied to Mr. Doolittle, and, after referring to a resolution introduced by himself, declaring that “local governments ought to be provisionally organized forthwith for the people in each of the districts named in the preamble hereto,”[151] being the Rebel States, paid the following tribute to Mr. Sumner.
“As to the matter of fact, whether this resolution is the Lincoln and Johnson theory or the Sumner theory, the Senator from Massachusetts has not yet, I regret to say, indorsed that resolution, nor anything that I said in support of it; and I suppose the Senator from Massachusetts will claim the right, which, under the Constitution, as I understand it, belongs to every Senator on this floor, to speak for himself. If it should hereafter happen to receive his indorsement, it will be very gratifying to me. If I should find that I had given utterance on this floor to one sentiment which is approved by the Senator from Massachusetts, it will be only a small compensation for the great number of living sentiments to which I have listened from the Senator from Massachusetts, and which are bound to live long after my colleague and myself shall have passed from this stage of existence.”[152]
Meanwhile, Mr. Sumner, acting upon the principles of his Resolutions, insisted upon colored suffrage in the Rebel States to be ordained by Congress, as will appear hereafter in these volumes. Senators who had originally opposed the power of Congress over these States now united in this requirement. Among those who still stood out was Mr. Doolittle, who, after alluding to President Lincoln’s policy of Reconstruction, said:—
“Neither Mr. Lincoln, nor any member of his Cabinet, nor more than two Senators, I believe, in this body, the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Sumner] and the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Gratz Brown], at that time advocated Reconstruction upon a basis including negro suffrage.”
And Mr. Doolittle then proclaimed that more than twenty Republican Senators, who had stood with him, “advocating Reconstruction upon the white basis,” now “go over to the side of the Senator from Massachusetts, and advocate his theory of Reconstruction upon the basis of negro suffrage and white disfranchisement.”[153]
Then came another speech by the same Senator, in which he describes Mr. Sumner as adding to his demands only to find them adopted by Senators who had begun by opposing him.
“My friend from Massachusetts ought to feel a sense of profound satisfaction to see the progress they have made. I mean no discourtesy, when I say the ideas advanced by him that night, rejected then by a majority of four to one, rule the Senate now. Not only have they educated, they have Sumnerized the Senate.”[154]
Mr. Hendricks, of Indiana, the Democratic leader of the Senate, differing widely from Mr. Sumner, in the debate on the Supplementary Reconstruction Bill, gave this testimony:—
“I said in the Senate, a year or two ago, that the course of things is this: the Senator from Massachusetts steps out boldly, declares his doctrine, and then he is approached, and finally he governs. Believing that he is in the right,—I concede that belief to him as a Senator,—his place in this body and before this country to-day is a very proud one. He was told somewhat sneeringly, two years ago, that among his party friends he stood alone; and to-day they all stand upon his position. This is a compliment and indorsement of sagacity and intelligence that but few men receive in the course of a public life.”[155]