History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States

by William Horatio Barnes

Perhaps no Congress in the history of the country presents fewer disagreeable incidents of a personal nature than this. The Democrats in Congress being in such a small minority as to be unable to do any thing effectual either to impede or advance legislation, could only present their vain protests in words. Chafing under the difficulties they encountered, it is not surprising that at times they used language so ill-timed and unparliamentary as to call forth the censure of the House.

On one occasion, Mr. Chanler, of New York, submitted a resolution "that the independent, patriotic, and constitutional course of the President of the United States, in seeking to protect, by the veto power, the rights of the people of this Union against the wicked and revolutionary acts of a few malignant and mischievous men meets with the approval of this House, and deserves the cordial support of all loyal citizens of the United States."

For introducing this resolution, the House voted to censure Mr.
Chanler as having "attempted a gross insult to the House."

Before the vote was taken, Mr. Chanler said: "If by my defiance I could drive your party from this hall, I would do so; if by my vote I could crush you, I would do so, and put the whole party, with your leader, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens], into that political hell surrounded by bayonets referred to by him in his argument on Thursday last."

In the Senate a petition was presented from citizens of New York praying that Garret Davis be expelled from the Senate, and, "with other traitors, held to answer to the law for his crime, since he stood in the attitude of an avowed enemy of the Government"—since he had made the declaration in reference to the Civil Rights Bill "that if the bill should become a law, he should feel compelled to regard himself as an enemy of the Government, and to work for its overthrow."

"It is true," replied Mr. Davis, "that I used in substance the words that are imputed to me in that petition; but, as a part of their context, I used a great many more. As an example of garbling, the petition reminds me of a specimen that I heard when I was a young man. It was to this effect: 'The Bible teaches "that there is no God."' When those words were read in connection with the context, the passage read in about these terms: 'The fool hath said in his heart that there is no God.' That specimen of the Bible was about as fair as this garbled statement is of what I said upon the matter to which it refers."

The most serious subject coming up for the censure of the House was an assault made by Mr. Rousseau, of Kentucky, upon Mr. Grinnell, of Iowa. In many of its features this incident resembles the "affairs" of a personal character which were of frequent occurrence when Southern members were in Congress before the war. In February, 1866, Mr. Rousseau, in the course of a speech on the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, made the remark, "If you intend to arrest white people on the ex parte statement of negroes, and hold them to suit your convenience for trial, and fine and imprison them, then I say that I oppose you; and if you should so arrest and punish me, I would kill you when you set me at liberty."

To this Mr. Grinnell replied, "I care not whether the gentleman was four years in the war on the Union side or four years on the other side, but I say that he degraded his State and uttered a sentiment I thought unworthy of an American officer when he said that he would do such an act on the complaint of a negro against him."

To this Mr. Rousseau, on the following day, replied: "I pronounce the assertion that I have degraded my State and uttered a sentiment unworthy an American officer to be false, a vile slander, and unworthy to be uttered by any gentleman upon this floor."

Some months after this, Mr. Rousseau, in a public speech delivered in New York city, denounced Mr. Grinnell as a "pitiable politician from Iowa." In a speech made in the House on the 11th of June, Mr. Rousseau said of Mr. Grinnell: "I do not suppose that any member of this House believed a word he said. When a member can so far depart from what every body believes he ought to know and does know is the truth, it is a degradation, not to his State, but to himself."