Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

—Mr. Shellabarger argued in favor of the bill, and said in conclusion, "This measure, taken alone, is one which I could not support unaccompanied by provisions for the rapid and immediate establishment of civil government based upon the suffrages of the loyal people of the South. I could not support a military measure like this if it was to be regarded as at all permanent in its character. It is because it is entirely the initiative, because it is only the employment of the Army of the United States as a mere police force, to preserve order until we can establish civil government based upon the loyal suffrages of the people, that I can support this measure at all. If it stood by itself, I could not, with my notions of the possibility and practicability of establishing civil governments in the South, based upon loyal suffrage, vote for this bill."

—Mr. Dawes made the pertinent inquiry whether, "after the General of the Army has, under this bill, assigned a competent and trustworthy officer to the duties prescribed, there is any thing to hinder the President of the United States, under virtue of his power as Commander-in-Chief, from removing that officer and putting in his place another of an opposite character, thus making the very instrumentality we provide one of terrible evil?"

—Mr. John A. Griswold, who became the Republican candidate for governor of New York the ensuing year, earnestly opposed the bill. "By it," said he, "we are proceeding in the wrong direction. For more than two years we have been endeavoring to provide civil governments for that portion of our country, and yet by the provisions of this bill we turn our backs on our policy of the last two years, and by a single stride proceed to put all that portion of the country under exclusively military control. . . . For one, I prefer to stand by the overtures we have made to these people, as conditions of their again participating in the government of the country. We have already placed before them conditions which the civilized world has indorsed as liberal, magnanimous, and just. I regret exceedingly that those very liberal terms have not been accepted by the South, but I prefer giving those people every opportunity to exhibit a spirit of obedience and loyalty."

—Mr. Henry J. Raymond opposed the bill in a vigorous speech. "Because we cannot devise any thing of a civil nature adequate to the emergency," said he, "it is urged that we must fly to the most violent measure the ingenuity of man could devise. Let me remind gentlemen that this has been the history of popular governments everywhere, the reason of their downfall, their decadence, and their death."

—Mr. Garfield indicated his support of the measure if it could be amended. "But," said he, "I call attention to the fact that from the collapse of the Rebellion to the present hour, Congress has undertaken to restore the States lately in rebellion by co-operation with their people, and that our efforts in that direction have proven a complete and disastrous failure." Alluding to the fact that the Fourteenth Amendment had been submitted as the basis of reconstruction, Mr. Garfield continued, "The constitutional amendment did not come up to the full height of the great occasion. It did not meet all I desired in the way of guarantees to liberty, but if the rebel States had adopted it as Tennessee did, I should have felt bound to let them in on the same terms prescribed for Tennessee. I have been in favor of waiting to give them full time to deliberate and to act. They have deliberated. They have acted. The last one of the sinful ten has at last, with contempt and scorn, flung back in our teeth the magnanimous offer of a generous nation. It is now our turn to act. They would not co-operate with us in building what they destroyed. We must remove the rubbish, and build from the bottom. . . . But there are some words which I want stricken out of this bill, and some limitations which I wish added, and I shall at least ask that they be considered."

—Mr. Kasson objected that the bill was too sweeping in its provisions, that it affected the loyally disposed in the South with the same severity as it did the disloyally disposed. "Instead of erecting," said he, "this great military power over people of some portions of the South who are, in fact, at peace and observing law and order, our rule should be so flexible that we may apply martial law wherever peace and law and order do not prevail, without imposing it upon people whose subordination to the law renders military rule unnecessary."

—Mr. Boutwell said, "To-day there are eight millions and more of people, occupying six hundred and thirty thousand square miles of territory in this country, who are writhing under cruelties nameless in their character, and injustice such as has not been permitted to exist in any other country of modern times; and all this because in this capital there sits enthroned a man who, so far as the Executive Department of the Government is concerned, guides the destinies of the Republic in the interest of the rebels; and because, also, in those ten former States, rebellion itself, inspired by the Executive Department of this Government, wields all authority, and is the embodiment of law and power everywhere. . . . It is the vainest delusion, the wildest of hopes, the most dangerous of all aspirations, to contemplate the reconstruction of civil government until the rebel despotisms enthroned in power in these ten States shall be broken up."

—Mr. Banks asked for deliberation and delay in the discussion. He believed that "we might reach a solution in which the two Houses of Congress will agree, which the people of this country will sustain, and in which the President of the United States will give us his support. And if we should agree on a measure satisfactory to ourselves, in which we should be sustained by the people, and the President should resist it, then we should be justified in dropping the subject of reconstruction, and considering the condition of the country in a different sense." The allusion of General Banks, though thus veiled, was understood to imply the possible necessity of impeaching the President. It attracted attention because General Banks had been reckoned among the determined opponents of that extreme measure.

—Mr. Kelley of Pennsylvania declared that "the passage of this bill or its equivalent is required by the manhood of this Congress, to save it from the hissing scorn and reproach of every Southern man who has been compelled to seek a home in the by-ways of the North, from every homeless widow and orphan of a Union soldier in the South, who should have been protected by the Government, and who, despite widowhood and orphanage, would have exalted in the power of our country had it not been for the treachery of Andrew Johnson."

—Mr. Allison of Iowa said, "Believing as I do, that this measure is essential to the preservation of the Union men of the South, believing that their lives, property and liberty cannot be secured except through military law, I am for this bill."