The death of General Scott having been the occasion of an adjournment of Congress, the consideration of the constitutional amendment was not resumed until the 4th of June. Mr. Hendricks moved to amend by including in the basis of representation in the Southern States three-fifths of the freedmen. Mr. Van Winkle offered an amendment providing that no person not excluded from office by the terms of the third section shall be liable to any disability or penalty for treason after a term of years. Both of these propositions were rejected by the Senate.
On the 5th of June, Mr. Poland, Mr. Stewart, and Mr. Howe addressed the Senate in favor of the constitutional amendment. Mr. Poland did not expect to be able to say any thing after six months' discussion of this subject. He took more hopeful views of the President's tractability than many others. "Although these propositions," said he, "may not, in all respects, correspond with the views of the President, I believe he will feel it to be his patriotic duty to acquiesce in the plan proposed, and give his powerful influence and support to procure their adoption."
"While it is not the plan that I would have adopted," said Mr. Stewart, "still it is the best that I can get, and contains many excellent provisions."
"I shall vote for the Constitutional amendment," said Mr. Howe, "regretfully, but not reluctantly. I shall vote for it regretfully, because it does not meet the emergency as I hoped the emergency would be met; but I shall not vote for it reluctantly, because it seems to me just now to be the only way in which the emergency can be met at all."
An issue of some personal interest arose between Mr. Howe and his colleague, Mr. Doolittle, which led them somewhat aside from the regular channel of discussion.
"He has been a most fortunate politician," said Mr. Howe, "always to happen to have just those convictions which bore the highest price in the market."
"That I ever intended in the slightest degree," replied Mr. Doolittle, "to swerve in my political action for the sake of offices or the price of offices in the market, is a statement wholly without foundation."
Mr. Howe had said in substance that in 1848 Mr. Doolittle was acting with the Free Democratic party in New York, which was stronger than the Democratic party in that State. In 1852, when he left the Free Democratic party, and acted with the Democratic party in Wisconsin, the Democratic party was in the majority in that State. He did not leave the Democratic party and join the Republican party in 1854, but only in 1856, and then Wisconsin was no longer a Democratic State.
Mr. Doolittle, after having given a detailed account of his previous political career, remarked: "During the last six months, in the State of Wisconsin, no man has struggled harder than I have struggled to save the Union party, to save it to its platform, to save it to its principles, to save it to its supremacy. For six months, from one end of Wisconsin to the other—ay, from Boston to St. Paul—by every one of a certain class of newspapers I have been denounced as a traitor to the Union party because I saved it from defeat. Sir, it is not the first time in the history of the world that men have turned in to crucify their savior."
On the same day, June 6th, Messrs. Hendricks, Sherman, Cowan, and others having participated in the discussion, the Senate voted on another amendment offered by Mr. Doolittle, apportioning Representatives, after the census of 1870, according to the number of legal voters in each State by the laws thereof. This proposition was rejected—yeas, 7; nays, 31.