The political disabilities imposed by the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution affected large classes in the Southern States. When the Amendment was under discussion in Congress, the total number affected was estimated at fourteen thousand, but subsequently it was ascertained to be much greater. It included not only those who had been members of Congress, or held any office under the United States, but all those who had been Executive or Judicial officers or members of the Legislatures in the revolted States. The Proclamation, making its ratification known to the people, was issued by Secretary Seward on the twentieth day of July, 1868; but in advance of this formal announcement Congress (then in session) began to relieve the persons affected. The first act was for the benefit of Roderick R. Butler of Tennessee, representative-elect to the Fortieth Congress. It was approved on the 19th of June (1868), and permission was given him to take a modified oath. On the 25th of June amnesty was extended to about one thousand persons, and during the remainder of the Congress some five hundred more were relieved from political disability. In the Forty-first Congress the liberality of the majority did not grow less; and during the two years thirty-three hundred participators in the rebellion—among them some of the most prominent and influential—were restored to the full privileges of citizenship; the rule being, in fact, that every one who asked for it, either through himself of his friends, was freely granted remission of penalty.
At the opening of the Forty-second Congress it was evident that the practice of removing the disabilities of individuals would not find favor as in the two preceding Congresses. There was a disposition rather to classify and reserve for further consideration the really offending men and give general amnesty to all others. To this end, Mr. Hale of Maine, on the 10th of April, 1871, moved to suspend the rules in order that a bill might be passed removing legal and political disabilities from all persons who had participated in the rebellion, except the following classes: first, members of the Congress of the United States who withdrew therefrom and aided the rebellion; second, officers of the Army and Navy, who, being above the age of twenty-one years, left the service and aided the rebellion; third, members of State Conventions who voted for pretended ordinances of secession. It was further provided that before receiving the benefit of this Act each person should take an oath of loyalty before the Clerk of a United States Court or before a United States Commissioner. Debate was not allowed and the bill was passed by more than the requisite two-thirds—ayes 134, noes 46.
When the Bill came before the Senate, Mr. Robertson of South Carolina attempted to put it on its passage, but objection being made it was referred under the rule, and thereby postponed for the session. With this result the pressure for individual relief of the disabled persons became so great, that at the next session of Congress a bill was prepared and passed in the House, containing some seventeen thousand names, to which the Senate proposed to add some three thousand. But the effect of this was still further to impress upon Congress the necessity of some generalization of the process of relief. The impossibility of examining into the merits of individuals by tens of thousands, and of establishing the quality and degree of their offenses, was so obvious that representatives on both sides of the House demanded an Act of general amnesty, excepting therefrom only the few classes whose names would lead to discussion and possibly to the defeat of the beneficent measure.
General Butler accordingly reported from the Judiciary Committee, on the 13th of May, 1872, a bill removing the disabilities "from all persons whomsoever, except senators and representatives of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses, officers in the Judicial, Military and Naval service of the United States, heads of Departments, and foreign Ministers of the United States." This Act of amnesty, which left so few under disabilities (not exceeding seven hundred and fifty in all), would have been completed long before, but for the unwillingness of the Democratic party to combine with it a measure, originated and earnestly advocated by Mr. Sumner, to broaden the civil rights of the colored man, to abolish discrimination against him as enforced by hotels, railroad companies, places of public amusement, and in short, in every capacity where he was rendered unequal in privilege to the white man. But the Democratic leaders were not willing to accept amnesty for their political friends in the South, if at the same time they must take with it the liberation of the colored man from odious personal discriminations.
The Democrats were now to witness an exhibition of magnanimity in the colored representatives which had not been shown towards them. When the Amnesty Bill came before the House for consideration, Mr. Rainey of South Carolina, speaking for the colored race whom he represented, said: "It is not the disposition of my constituents that these disabilities should longer be retained. We are desirous of being magnanimous: it may be that we are so to a fault. Nevertheless we have open and frank hearts towards those who were our former oppressors and taskmasters. We foster no enmity now, and we desire to foster none, for their acts in the past to us or to the Government we love so well. But while we are willing to accord them their enfranchisement and here to-day give our votes that they may be amnestied, while we declare our hearts open and free from any vindictive feelings towards them, we would say to those gentlemen on the other side that there is another class of citizens in the country, who have certain rights and immunities which they would like you, sirs, to remember and respect. . . . We invoke you, gentlemen, to show the same kindly feeling towards us, a race long oppressed, and in demonstration of this humane and just feeling, I implore you, give support to the Civil-rights Bill, which we have been asking at your hands, lo! these many days."
There was no disposition, as General Butler explained, to unite the Civil-rights Bill with the Amnesty Bill, because the former could be passed by a majority, while the latter required two-thirds. With General Butler and the colored representatives speaking for the most radical sentiment of the House, and the Democrats eager for the bill if it could be disentangled from all connection with other measures, complete unanimity was reached, and the bill was enacted without even a division being demanded.
When the measure reached the Senate it was governed by an understanding that without being united in the same Act it should keep even pace with the Civil-rights Bill, and that while the Southern white man was to be relieved of his political disabilities the Southern black man should be endowed with his personal rights. On the 21st of May, therefore, the Civil-rights Bill was taken up for consideration in advance of the Amnesty Bill. In the temporary absence of Mr. Sumner from the Senate chamber, the equality recognized as to public schools and jury service was struck out, and in that form the bill was passed. The Amnesty Bill was immediately taken up; while it was pending Mr. Sumner returned and warmly denounced the fundamental change that had been made in the Civil-rights Bill. In consequence of what he considered a breach of faith on the question, he voted against the passage of the Amnesty Bill, Senator Nye of Nevada being the only one who united with him in the negative vote. Mr. Sumner's denunciations of the emasculated Civil-rights Bill were extremely severe; but he was pertinently reminded by Senator Anthony of Rhode Island that the bill was all that could be obtained in the Senate at this session, and perhaps more than could be enacted into law. The senator from Rhode Island had correctly estimated the probably action of the House, for although on three different occasions attempts were made to pass the bill under a suspension of the rules, the Democratic members, who numbered more than one-third of the House, voted solidly in the negative, and thus defeated the measure.
The colored representatives, who had been slaves, were willing to release their late masters from every form of disability, but the immediate friends of the masters were unwilling to extend the civil rights of the colored man. So far as chivalry, magnanimity, charity, Christian kindness, were involved, the colored men appeared at an advantage. Perhaps it is not surprising that lingering prejudices and the sudden change of situation should have restrained Southern white men from granting these privileges, but it must always be mentioned to the credit of the colored man that he gave his vote for amnesty to his former master when his demand for delay would have obstructed the passage of the measure.
In the stubborn opposition maintained by the Democratic party to the admission of colored men to the rights of citizenship, the closing argument of violent harangues was usually in the form of a question, "Do you want to see them in Congress?"—to which the natural and logical answer was that the right of the colored man to sit in Congress does not depend in the least upon the desire or the prejudice of other States and other districts. It is solely a matter within the judgment of the State or district which in a fair vote and honest election may choose to send him. The revolution in favor of human rights, promoted and directed by the Republican party, swept onward: the colored man, freed from slavery, attained the right of suffrage, and in due season was sent to Congress. Did harm result from it? Nay, was it not the needed demonstration of the freedom and justice of a republican government? If it be viewed simply as an experiment, it was triumphantly successful. The colored men who took seats in both Senate and House did not appear ignorant or helpless. They were as a rule studious, earnest, ambitious men, whose public conduct—as illustrated by Mr. Revels and Mr. Bruce in the Senate, and by Mr. Rapier, Mr. Lynch and Mr. Rainey in the House—would be honorable to any race. Coals of fire were heaped on the heads of all their enemies when the colored men in Congress heartily joined in removing the disabilities of those who had before been their oppressors, and who, with deep regret be it said, have continued to treat them with injustice and ignominy.
[(1) Objection was not interposed against Mr. Cameron personally. By seniority he was entitled to the place in the event of a vacancy. The controversy related solely to the refusal to give Mr. Sumner his old position.]