"The obligations of the United States incurred in suppressing insurrection, or in defense of the Union, or for payment of bounties or pensions incident thereto, shall remain inviolate."
Such were the amendments to the pending measure which the majority saw proper to propose.
At a subsequent period of the debate, Mr. Hendricks, in a speech against the joint resolution, gave his view of the manner in which these amendments were devised. Being spoken, in good humor, by one whom a fellow-Senator once declared to be "the best-natured man in the Senate," and having, withal, a certain appropriateness to this point, his remarks are here presented:
"For three days the Senate-chamber was silent, but the discussions were transferred to another room of the Capitol, with closed doors and darkened windows, where party leaders might safely contend for a political and party policy. When Senators returned to their seats, I was curious to observe who had won and who lost in the party lottery. The dark brow of the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Clark] was lighted with a gleam of pleasure. His proposed substitute for the third section was the marked feature of the measure. But upon the lofty brow of the Senator from Nevada [Mr. Stewart] there rested a cloud of disappointment and grief. His bantling, which he had named universal amnesty and universal suffrage, which he had so often dressed and undressed in the presence of the Senate, the darling offspring of his brain, was dead; it had died in the caucus; and it was left to the sad Senator only to hope that it might not be his last. Upon the serene countenance of the Senator from Maine, the Chairman of the Fifteen, there rested the composure of the highest satisfaction; a plausible political platform had been devised, and there was yet hope for his party."
On the 30th of May, the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, proceeded in the consideration of the constitutional amendment. The several clauses were taken up separately and in order.
Mr. Doolittle was desirous of amending the first section, relating to the rights of citizens, by inserting a clause excepting from its operation "Indians not taxed." His proposition was rejected.
"The Committee of Fifteen," said Mr. Doolittle, referring to the Civil Rights Bill, "fearing that this declaration by Congress was without validity unless a constitutional amendment should be brought forward to enforce it, have thought proper to report this amendment."
"I want to say to the honorable Senator," Mr. Fessenden replied, "that he is drawing entirely upon his imagination. There is not one word of correctness in all that he is saying; not a particle; not a scintilla; not the beginning of truth."
The first and second sections of the amendment were accepted in
Committee of the Whole, with little further attempt at alteration.
The third section, cutting off late Confederate officials from eligibility to Federal offices, provoked repeated attempts to modify and emasculate it. Among them was a motion by Mr. Saulsbury to amend the final clause by adding that the President, by the exercise of the pardoning power, may remove the disability.