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

—After a prolonged debate on the amendment offered by the senator from Maryland, it was agreed to lay it aside by common consent, that Senator Sherman might offer a substitute for the entire bill, the fifth section of which substantially embodied the amendment offered by the senator from Maryland and which had been known as the Blaine Amendment in the House. Mr. Sherman's substitute gave to the President his rightful power to control the assignment of officers of the army to the command of the military districts in the South. After debate the substitute of Mr. Sherman was passed by a party vote,—twenty-nine to ten.

When the bill went to the House it was violently opposed by Mr. Stevens and Mr. Boutwell. Mr. Boutwell said, "My objection to the proposed substitute of the Senate is fundamental and conclusive, because the measure proposes to reconstruct the State governments at once through the agency of disloyal men."

—Mr. Stevens said, "When this House sent the bill to the Senate it was simply to protect the loyal men of the Southern States. The Senate has sent us back an amendment which contains every thing else but protection. It has sent us back a bill which raises the whole question in dispute as to the best mode of reconstructing the States, by making distant and future pledges which this Congress has no authority to make and no power to execute."

—Mr. Blaine argued against Mr. Stevens's proposition to send the measure to a Conference Committee, and he begged those "who look to any measure that shall guarantee a republican form of government to the rebel states, with universal suffrage for loyal men," to vote for this bill as it came from the Senate.

—Mr. Wilson of Iowa sustained the bill. "Although it does not attain," said he, "all that I desire to accomplish, it embraces much upon which I have insisted, and seems to be all that I can get at this session. It reaches far beyond anything which the most sanguine of us hoped for a year ago."

—Mr. Bingham declared that "the defeat of this bill to-day is really a refusal to enact any law whatever for the protection of any man in that vast portion of our country which was so recently swept over by our armies from the Potomac to the Rio Grande."

—General Schenck spoke with great force in favor of the bill, answering the somewhat reckless objections of Mr. Stevens in the most effective manner.

—General Garfield replied to those who objected to the Senate provision giving the command of officers in the South directly to the President. He said, "I want this Congress to give the command to the President of the United States, and then, perhaps, some impeachment hunters will have a chance to impeach him. They will if he does not obey." He rebuked the gentlemen "who, when any measure comes here that seems almost to grasp our purpose, resist and tell us that it is a surrender of liberty. I remember that this was done to us at the last session, when everybody knows that if the Republican party lived, it must live by the strength of the Constitutional amendment, and when we agreed to pass it the previous question was waived to allow certain gentlemen to tell us that it was too low and too unworthy, too mean and too unstatesmanlike."

—Mr. Russell Thayer of Pennsylvania supported the bill. He said, "I see in this provision, as I believe, what the deliberate judgment of the American people will regard as ample guarantees for the future loyalty and obedience of the South. Those conditions are: first, that the Southern States shall adopt a constitution in conformity with the Constitution of the United States; second, that it shall be ratified by a majority of the people of the States, without distinction of race, color, or condition; third, that such constitution shall guarantee universal and impartial suffrage; fourth, that such constitution shall be approved by Congress; fifth, that the States shall adopt the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution; and sixth, that the amendment shall become a part of the Constitution of the United States. All this is required to be done before representation is accorded to the States lately in rebellion, and then no representative presenting himself for admission, can be received unless he can take the test oath."

—Mr. Eldridge of Wisconsin denounced the whole measure as most wicked and abominable. "It contains," said he, "all that is vicious, all that is mischievous in any of the propositions which have come either from the Committee on Reconstruction or from any gentleman upon the other side of the House."