Who, then, can hesitate? Look at it in any light you please. Regard it as the completion of these Reconstruction measures, as a constitutional enactment, or as a measure of expediency to secure results we all desire at the approaching elections, and who can hesitate? There has been no bill before you for a long time of more practical value than this. I hope there will be no question about proceeding with it, and that we may pass it before we separate to-night.
Mr. Edmunds. I agree with my friend from Massachusetts, that the bill has very great merit. It has supreme moral merit. I agree to every word of it. I am a little afraid, it is true, that there is a higher law that will bind us not to pass it, for want of power.
Mr. Sumner. Want of power! Will the Senator be good enough to state the reason?
Mr. Edmunds. No, not on this point, because it is not relevant to this question of order.
Mr. Sumner. But, as the Senator is going into the question of the want of power, I really wish he would deign to enlighten us upon that.
Mr. Edmunds. My friend will have to go without it, so far as I am concerned, for I shall not make it.
Mr. Sumner. Then I shall begin to think the Senator cannot.
Mr. Edmunds. That is not a very dangerous state of things; but there are others who can.
The Senate decided the motion out of order,—Yeas 12, Nays 22.