"He talks about establishing a despotism," said Mr. Henderson, "and gets into a perfect fret about it. Why, sir, the Southern States have presented nothing but a despotism for the last six years. During the rebel rule it was a despotism, the veriest despotism ever established upon earth; and since the rebel rule ceased, the President of the United States certainly has governed the Southern States without ever consulting Congress on the subject."
The Senate held an evening session for the consideration of this bill. Mr. Hendricks proposed to modify the pending amendment so as to provide for impartial rather than universal suffrage. He thought that States should be allowed to limit suffrage. Mr. Saulsbury would not vote for this amendment because he was unwilling to "touch, taste, or handle the unclean thing." On the other hand, Mr. Davis could vote for it because he preferred a "little unclean thing" to "a big one." Mr. Hendricks finally withdrew his amendment.
Mr. Doolittle hoped that the majority would seriously weigh this question because on it might depend whether the people of the South would accept the Constitutional Amendment, and accept the proposition necessary to get rid of military despotism.
"Make them," said Mr. Wilson.
"I ask," said Mr. Doolittle, "if that is the true language of a statesman, to say to a people who have been educated in the largest liberty, a people in whose veins the Anglo-Saxon blood is flowing, which for a thousand years has been fighting against despotism of every form, 'You must accept this position at the point of the bayonet, or forever live with the bayonet at your throats?' Is that the way to make peace?"
"I think it is statesmanship," replied Mr. Wilson, "to settle this question of reconstruction upon the solid basis of the perfect equality of rights and privileges among citizens of the United States. Colored men are citizens, and they have just as much right as this race whose blood has been fighting against oppression for a thousand years, as he says, and any settlement of this civil war upon any other basis than perfect equality of rights and privileges among citizens of the United States is not statesmanship; it is mere trifling; only keeping open questions for future controversy. Nothing is settled unless it is settled upon the basis of justice."
"I shall vote for this amendment," said Mr. Lane, "believing that it is necessary to make a perfect system for the restoration of the lately rebellious States."
"The amendment," said Mr. Johnson, "is objectionable to me only upon the ground that it denies to those States the right of coming into the Union entitled to representation until they extend the suffrage, because I believe the right of suffrage is a matter with which the Congress of the United States has no concern."
"I know perfectly well," said Mr. Buckalew, "that a vote for this amendment, although given under circumstances which do not commit me to the proposition as a final one, will be misunderstood and perverted. It will be said throughout the country of each of those who stand in the position in which I stand, that we have departed, to some extent at least, from that position which we have hitherto maintained, and maintained against all the influences of the time, against the pressure of circumstances which have swept many from our side and carried them into the large and swollen camp of the majority. Sir, I for one am ambitious of being known as one among that number of men who have kept their faith, who have followed their convictions, who have obeyed the dictation of duty in the worst of times, who did not bend when the storm beat hardest and strongest against them, but kept their honor unsullied, their faith intact, their self-respect unbroken and entire."
"My object is," said Mr. Henderson, when proposing to modify the pending amendment, "to secure the franchise, and after that is secured, to go forward and establish civil governments in the Southern States."