The amendment of Mr. Buckalew was agreed to, and Mr. Sumner’s amendment, as amended, was carried,—Yeas 22, Nays 16,—and the bill was approved by the President July 2, 1864.
RECONSTRUCTION, AND ADOPTION OF PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION BY ACT OF CONGRESS.
Remarks in the Senate, July 1, 1864.
The effort at Reconstruction, which failed in the previous Congress, was superseded at the present session by another, having, like the former, as its distinctive feature, the assertion of the power of Congress over the Rebel States.
February 15th, Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, reported a bill to guaranty to certain States, whose governments have been usurped or overthrown, a republican form of government. This bill provided for these States Provisional Governors, appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate; also, the assembling of Constitutional Conventions, chosen by “loyal white male citizens,” being a majority of the persons enrolled in the State, which shall declare “involuntary servitude forever prohibited, and the freedom of all persons guarantied in said State”; also, all slaves were declared emancipated, and persons free by this or any other act or by “any proclamation of the President” were protected in their freedom. After earnest debate, this bill passed the House May 4th,—Yeas 74, Nays 66.
In the Senate the bill was referred to the Committee on Territories, of which Mr. Wade was Chairman. May 27th, he reported it to the Senate with amendments. July 1st, it was on his motion considered, and, in order to save the bill at that late day of the session, he abandoned the amendments reported, the most important of which was to strike out the word “white,” so as to read “all male citizens of the United States.” This amendment was rejected, by Yeas 5, Nays 24,—the minority being Messrs. Gratz Brown, Lane, of Kansas, Morgan, of New York, Pomeroy, of Kansas, and Sumner. Mr. Gratz Brown then moved to substitute for the whole bill a single section, providing that the inhabitants of a State declared to be in insurrection shall not cast any vote for electors of President or Vice-President, or elect Senators or Representatives in Congress, until the suppression of the insurrection, “nor until such return to obedience shall be declared by proclamation of the President, issued by virtue of an Act of Congress, hereafter to be passed, authorizing the same.” This was in conformity with propositions introduced by Mr. Sumner.[366] The House bill was unsatisfactory, inasmuch as it founded the new governments on “white male citizens”: but, besides asserting the power of Congress over the Rebel States, it decreed the abolition of Slavery in these States; therefore Mr. Sumner favored it. But the substitute of Mr. Brown prevailed,—Yeas 17, Nays 16.
Mr. Sumner then brought forward his bill, originally reported from the Committee on Slavery and Freedmen, and moved it as an additional section:—