The next appearance of the bill is July 7th, of that year, when, according to the Journal, “Mr. Trumbull, from the Committee on the Judiciary,” with a large number of other bills reported this to the Senate, with a recommendation “that they ought not to pass.” The record says that—
“The Senate proceeded to consider the said bills as in Committee of the Whole; and no amendment being made, they were severally reported to the Senate.
“On motion by Mr. Trumbull,
“Ordered, That the said bills be postponed indefinitely.”
You will observe, Sir, the bill was treated in the lump with others, at the close of the session; and you have here the report of the very committee to which it is now proposed to refer it.
The next appearance of the bill is January 20, 1871, and the entry is as follows:—
“Mr. Sumner asked, and by unanimous consent obtained, leave to bring in a bill supplementary to an Act entitled ‘An Act to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and furnish the means of their vindication,’ passed April 9, 1866; which was read the first and second times, by unanimous consent, referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and ordered to be printed.”
February 15, 1871, “Mr. Trumbull, from the Committee on the Judiciary, to whom were referred the following bills [the present with others], reported them severally without amendment, and that they ought not to pass.”
There was no action of the Senate at the time; for you will bear in mind the lateness of the day in the session; and Senators cannot have forgotten the pressure of business at that time. That was sufficient reason against the consideration of the bill. Indeed, with all the assiduity that I could command, I was not able to obtain a hearing for it.
Then came the first session of the Forty-Second Congress, beginning March 4, 1871. Upon the Journal it appears, March 9, 1871,—