History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States

by William Horatio Barnes

Mr. Ashley moved an amendment providing for the restoration to loyal owners of property confiscated by the rebel government, and providing that military government should cease so soon as the people of the rebel States should adopt State constitutions securing to all citizens equal protection of the laws, including the right of the elective franchise, and should ratify the proposed amendment to the Constitution.

Mr. Raymond thought that, on account of the great diversity of opinion, the whole subject should be referred to a select committee, who should be instructed to report within three or four days a bill which should "provide temporarily for the protection of rights and the preservation of the peace in the States lately in rebellion, and also for the speedy admission of those States to their relations in the Union upon the basis of the Constitutional Amendment." Thus he hoped a result could be reached which "would command the support of Congress and of the country, and the approval, or at least the assent, of the Executive."

Mr. Boutwell remarked that previous propositions having been referred to the Committee on Reconstruction, they had agreed upon the bill before the House with a unanimity which no other report had ever obtained, nor had any bill submitted by that committee ever been so carefully considered as this. "To-day," said he, "there are eight millions and more of people, occupying six hundred and thirty thousand square miles of the territory of this country, who are writhing under cruelties nameless in their character—injustice such as has not been permitted to exist in any other country in modern times; and all this because in this capital there sits enthroned a man who, so far as the executive department is concerned, guides the destinies of the republic in the interest of 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 every-where. Until in the South this obstacle to reconstruction is removed, there can be no effectual step taken toward the reörganization of the Government."

"A well man needs no remedies," said Mr. Niblack, in a speech against the bill; "it is only when he is sick that you can require him to submit to medicinal applications. A country at peace does not need and ought not to allow martial law and other summary remedies incident to a state of war. The highest and dearest interests of this country are made subordinate to party exigencies and to special and particular interests. No wonder, then, that trade languishes and commerce declines."

On the 12th of February, Mr. Bingham proposed an amendment making the restoration of the rebel States conditional upon their adoption of the Constitutional Amendment, and imposing upon them, meanwhile, the military government provided by the pending bill.

Mr. Kelley advocated the bill as reported from the committee. "This," said he, "is little more than a mere police bill. The necessity for it arises from the perfidy of the President of the United States. Had he been true to the duties of his high office and his public and repeated pledges, there would have been no necessity for considering such a bill."

"Throughout the region of the unreconstructed States," said Mr. Maynard, "the animating, life-giving principle of the rebellion is as thoroughly in possession of the country and of all the political power there to-day as it ever has been since the first gun was fired upon Fort Sumter. The rebellion is alive. It is strong—strong in the number of its votaries, strong in its social influences, strong in its political power, strong in the belief that the executive department of this Government is in sympathy and community of purpose with them, strong in the belief that the controlling majority of the supreme judiciary of the land is with them in legal opinion, strong in the belief that the controversy in this body between impracticable zeal and incorrigible timidity will prevent any thing of importance being accomplished or any legislation matured."

"It is," said Mr. Allison, "because of the interference of the President of the United States with the military law which exists in those States that this bill is rendered necessary. In my judgment, if we had to-day an Executive who was desirous of enforcing the laws of the United States to protect loyal men in those States, instead of defending the rebel element, this bill would not be needed."

Mr. Blaine submitted an amendment providing that any one of the "late so-called Confederate States" might be restored to representation and relieved of military rule when, in addition to having accepted the Constitutional Amendment, it should have conferred the elective franchise impartially upon all male citizens over twenty-one years of age.

Mr. Blaine maintained that the people in the elections of 1866 had declared in favor of "universal, or, at least, impartial suffrage as the basis of restoration."