Now does my excellent friend from Oregon, who wishes to bury this effort in a committee, doubt the concluding resolution? Can he hesitate to say that every one of these requirements is in the nature of a guaranty, without which we shall not obtain that complete security for the future which our country has a right to expect? There they are. That the illegal governments must be vacated. Who can doubt that? That provisional governments must be constituted as temporary substitutes for the illegal governments. Who can doubt that? That the new governments must be founded on an unalterable basis of loyalty, and to that end no Rebels must be allowed to exert influence or agency in the formation of the new governments. Who can doubt that? Then, again, education: who can doubt? Certainly not my friend from Oregon: he will not doubt the importance of education as a corner-stone of Reconstruction. It is a golden moment. We have the power. Let us not fail to exercise it. Exercising it now, we can shape the destinies of that people for the future. There remains the homestead. I see the practical difficulties; but I do not despair. Let us apply ourselves to them, and I do not doubt that we can secure substantially to every head of a family among the freedmen a piece of land, and we may then go further, and, in the way of machinery, provide a vote by ballot instead of a vote viva voce.
Now I insist that all these are in the nature of guaranties of future peace, and we should not hesitate in doing all within our power to secure them. I hope, therefore, that Senators will act on these resolutions without reference to a committee. I see no occasion for a reference. There is one objection, at least, on the face: it will cause delay. Let these resolutions be adopted and go to the country, and you will find that the gratitude of the American people, and of all Union men at the South, will come up to Congress for your act.
Mr. Dixon, of Connecticut, deprecated the adoption of the resolutions. The bill recently passed “purported to be final.… It provided certain terms, harsh and severe in the extreme, upon which the States formerly in rebellion should be restored to the Union.” He then remarked: “These resolutions come from the right quarter. Whatever may be my opinion of his [Mr. Sumner’s] political views, I will say for that Senator, that for the last two years he has been prophetic; what he has announced, what he has declared, what he has said must be law, has become law upon many subjects.… Let us know what is coming; let us see the worst.… While I was very glad to find—if I understood them correctly—that the Senator from Maine [Mr. Fessenden] and some other Senators about me did not coincide with the views of the Senator from Massachusetts, I could not forget that two years ago I heard a Senator on this floor say that upon another subject there was not a single Senator here who agreed with the Senator from Massachusetts; and yet upon that very subject I believe every Senator on the majority side of the Senate now, if not at heart concurring with him, acts and votes with him.”
Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, opposed the resolutions. It seemed to him “not exactly fair or just or ingenuous to the Southern people to add new terms, or require of them additional guaranties, as conditions to the admission of representation.”
Mr. Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, voted for the recent bill because he thought he saw in opinions of Mr. Sumner, “and a few others who concur with him, that, if the measure then before the Senate was not adopted, harsher, much harsher, measures would in the end be exacted of the South.”
Mr. Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, thought the resolutions “unfair to Congress and unfair to the country.”
Mr. Sumner said in reply:—
The objects which I seek in Reconstruction are regarded in very different lights by myself and by Senators who have spoken. The Senator from New Jersey, the Senator from Maryland, and the Senator from Ohio all regard these requirements as in the nature of burdens or penalties. Education is a burden or penalty; a homestead is a burden or penalty. It is a new burden or penalty which I am seeking—so these distinguished Senators argue—to impose upon the South. Are they right, or am I right? Education can never be burden or penalty. Justice in the way of a homestead can never be burden or penalty. Each is a sacred duty which the nation owes to those who rightfully look to us for protection.
Now, at this moment, in the development of events, the people at the South rightfully look to us for protection. They rightfully look to us, that, in laying the foundation-stone of future security, we shall see that those things are done which will make the security real, and not merely nominal. And yet, when I ask that the security shall be real, and not merely nominal, I am encountered by the objection that I seek to impose new burdens,—that I am harsh. Sir, if I know my own heart, I would not impose a burden upon any human being. I would not impose a burden even upon those who have trespassed so much against the Republic. I do not seek their punishment. Never has one word fallen from my lips asking for their punishment, for any punishment of the South. All that I ask is the establishment of human rights on a permanent foundation. Is there any Senator who differs from me? I am sure that my friend from Ohio seeks the establishment of future security; but he will allow me to say, that to my mind he abandons it at the beginning,—he fails at the proper moment to require guaranties without which future security will be vain.
This is not the first time that the Senator from Ohio has set himself against fundamental propositions of Reconstruction. When, now more than four years ago, I had the honor of introducing into this Chamber a proposition declaring the jurisdiction of Congress over this whole question, and over the whole Rebel region, I was met by the Senator, who reminded me that I was alone, and did not hesitate to say that my position was not unlike that of Jefferson Davis.