History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States

by William Horatio Barnes

"Our friends," said he, in another part of his remarks, "who love this bill, love it now because the President is to execute it, as he has executed every law for the last two years, by the murder of Union men, and by despising Congress and flinging into our teeth all that we seek to have done."

Mr. Stevens thought that in two hours a Committee of Conference could frame a bill and report it to the House free from all these difficulties—free from all this extraneous matter—which would protect every loyal man in the Southern States, and do no injustice to the disloyal.

Mr. Blaine supported the bill as it came from the Senate. "Congress," said he, "no more guarantees, under this bill, the right of any rebel in any State to vote than did Congress guarantee to the rebels in Tennessee the right to vote."

"Although this bill," said Mr. Wilson of Iowa, "does not attain all I desire to accomplish, it does embrace much upon which I have insisted. It reaches far beyond any thing which the most sanguine of us hoped for a year ago. It secures equal suffrage to all loyal men; it sets aside the pretended governments which now abuse power in the rebel States; it insists on the ratification of the Constitutional Amendment, under the operation of which all the rebels who now occupy official position in the States affected by this bill will be rendered ineligible to office, State or national; it presents an affirmative policy, on the part of Congress, hostile to that of the President; it demonstrates the ability of Congress to agree upon a given line of future action; and, finally, it reserves to Congress jurisdiction over the whole case when the people of any Southern disorganized State may present a Constitution and ask for admission to this body as a part of the governing power of the nation. There is too much of good in this to be rejected. I will vote to concur in the amendment of the Senate."

Mr. Bingham maintained that in the bill, as it passed the House, they had voted as extensive powers to the President as were conferred upon him by the bill as amended by the Senate. The former bill provided that the General in command of the army should detail army officers; but all officers of the army are under command of the Commander-in-chief as constituted by the supreme law of the land. "For myself," said he, "I had rather that my right hand should forget its cunning, and that my tongue should cleave to the roof of my mouth, than to find myself here so false to my own convictions, and so false to the high trust committed to me by that people who sent me here as to vote against this bill."

"This bill," said Mr. Farnsworth, "provides a platform ten steps in advance of the platform upon which we went to the people last fall. We then only expected the ratification of the amendment to the Constitution proposed by Congress at its last session, and the formation of Constitutions, republican in form, which should give the people there the right to send loyal men here as Senators and Representatives. But by this bill we extend impartial suffrage to the black man—universal suffrage."

"I am one of those who believe we ought to do something," said Mr. Schenck. "I believe we ought to declare to these rebel States, as we do by this bill, that they shall be put under martial law, and held by the strong hand to keep the peace until they have complied with whatever conditions are imposed upon them. But while we do this, I think it equally important to announce to them, to announce to the country, to announce to our constituents as the completion of the whole platform upon which we go before the nation, the terms which we require of them."

Mr. Garfield favored the Senate amendment. "There are some gentlemen," said he, "who live among the eagles on the high mountain peaks, beyond the limit of perpetual frost, and they see the lineaments in the face of freedom so much clearer than I do, whenever any measure comes here that seems almost to grasp our purpose, they rise and tell us it is all poor and mean and a surrender of liberty."

"These terms embrace, in my judgment," said Mr. Thayer, "every guarantee, every safeguard, and every check which it is proper for us to demand or apply. Upon these foundations we can safely build, for by them we retain the final control of the question in our own hands."

Mr. Hotchkiss opposed the bill as amended. "If you allow this bill to go into operation as it now stands," said he, "without making any amendment of its provisions, and permit these elections to be held, as they must necessarily be held under this bill, under the authority, control, and regulation of the rebel governments in those States, there will be no security whatever, and you will have the elections in New Orleans held under the control of Mayor Monroe and the mob which he used to such fell purpose last summer. That is the entertainment to which this bill invites us.