History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States

by William Horatio Barnes

Mr. Johnson said that the adoption of the amendment would make the bill much less objectionable to him, although he could not vote for it even if amended. He then offered the amendment, which was substantially the same as that proposed by Messrs. Bingham and Blaine in the House of Representatives.

Mr. Stewart regretted that the Senator from Oregon had changed his mind in regard to this amendment. "The military bill without that," said he, "is an acknowledgment that, after two years of discussion and earnest thought, we are unable to reconstruct, and are compelled to turn the matter over to the military. It seems to me that the people of the United States want and demand something more than a military government for the South."

Several Senators thought Mr. Stewart was unnecessarily troubled about military governments in the South. "Are we," asked Mr. Morrill, "who have stood here for five long, bloody years, and witnessed the exercise of military power over these rebel States, to be frightened now by a declaration of that sort? That is not the temper in which I find myself to-day. I have got so accustomed, if you please, to the exercise of this authority——"

"That is the trouble," said Mr. Stewart.

"That has not been our trouble that we have exercised power," said Mr. Morrill; "that has been the salvation of the nation. The trouble has been from the hesitation to exercise authority when authority was required."

Mr. Wilson thought that the wisest course would be to pass the bill just as it came from the House. If it was to be amended at all, he would propose an amendment that all citizens should "equally possess the right to pursue all lawful avocations and receive the equal benefits of the public schools."

"I think the amendments," said Mr. Howard, "entirely incompatible with the scheme and provisions of the bill itself, and that gentlemen will discover that incompatibility on looking into it."

Mr. Henderson thought that the remedy proposed by him long before would be found the only cure for the ills of the nation. "I offered," said he, "twelve months ago, a proposition, as a constitutional amendment, that was to give political rights to the negroes. Some Senators said it was a humbug, that it was Jacob Townsend's Sarsaparilla, or some thing to that effect, that it would amount to nothing. Now, I will ask what other protection can you give to a Union man in the Southern States than the ballot?"

Since the bill must be passed both Houses and go to the President by the following Tuesday, in order to give Congress time to pass it over his veto, Mr. Williams, who had the bill in charge, was desirous of having it passed upon in the Senate on the evening of the day of this discussion, February 15th. Several Senators protested against this as unreasonable haste. "It is extraordinary," said Mr. Doolittle, "that a bill of this kind, that proposes to establish a military despotism over eight million people and a country larger than England, France, and Spain combined, is to be pressed to a vote in this Senate the first day it is taken up for consideration."

"If the measure will not bear argument," said Mr. Hendricks, "then let it be passed in the dark hours of the night. I think it is becoming, when despotism is established in this free land, that the best blood that ever ran in mortal veins was shed to make free, that that despotism shall be established when the sun does not shed its bright light upon the earth. It is a work for darkness and not for light."