Mr. Fessenden. Now I should like to know if he puts the possession by every man of a piece of land on the same ground.
Mr. Sumner. I do not.
Mr. Fessenden. The Senator assimilated the two, and said, that, having done the one, we must do the other. I supposed, perhaps, the same process of reasoning applied to both.
Mr. Sumner. No; the homestead stands on the necessity of the case, to complete the work of the ballot.
Mr. Grimes [of Iowa]. Have we not done that under the Homestead Law?
Mr. Sumner. The freedmen are not excluded from the Homestead Law; but I would provide them with a piece of land where they are.
Mr. Fessenden. That is more than we do for white men.
Mr. Sumner. White men have never been in slavery; there is no emancipation and no enfranchisement of white men to be consummated. I put it to my friend, I ask his best judgment, can he see a way to complete and crown this great and glorious work without securing land? My friend before me [Mr. Grimes] asks, “How are we to get the land?” There are several ways. By a process of confiscation we should have had enough; and I have no doubt that the country would have been better, had the great landed estates of the South been divided and subdivided among the loyal colored population. That is the judgment of many Unionists at the South. I say nothing on that point; but clearly there are lands through the South belonging to the United States, or that have fallen to the United States through the failure to pay taxes. It has always seemed to me that in the exercise of the pardoning power it would have been easy for the President to require that the person who was to receive a pardon should allot a certain portion of his lands to his freedmen. That might have been annexed as a condition. A President properly inspired, and disposed to organize a true Reconstruction, could not have hesitated in such a requirement. That would have been a very simple process. I am aware that Congress cannot affect the pardoning power; but still I doubt not there is something that can be done by Congress. Where Congress has done so much, I am unwilling to believe it cannot do all that the emergency requires. Let us not shrink from the difficulties. With regard to the homestead there may be difficulties, but not on that account should we hesitate. We must assure peace and security to these people, and, to that end, consider candidly, gently, carefully, the proper requirements, and then fearlessly provide for them.
There is still another, which I have not named in these resolutions, though I have employed it in the careful and somewhat extended Reconstruction Bill which I have laid on the table of the Senate, and which some time I may try to call up for discussion,—and that is, the substitution of the vote by ballot for the vote viva voce. Letters from Virginia, and also from other parts of the South, all plead for this change. They say, that, so long as the vote viva voce continues, it will be difficult for the true Union men to organize; they will be under check and control from the Rebels. I have a letter, received only this morning, from a Unionist, from which I will read a brief passage.
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