On the day following the discussion above given, Mr. Cowan moved to amend the first section of the bill so that its operation would be limited to such States "as have lately been in rebellion." In supporting his amendment, Mr. Cowan remarked: "I have no idea of having this system extended over Pennsylvania. I think that as to the freedmen who make their appearance there, she will be able to take care of them and provide as well for them as any bureau which can be created here. I wish to confine the operation of this institution to the States which have been lately in rebellion."
To this Mr. Trumbull replied: "The Senator from Pennsylvania will see that the effect of that would be to exclude from the operation of the bureau the State of Kentucky and the State of Delaware, where the slaves have been emancipated by the constitutional amendment. The operation of the bureau will undoubtedly be chiefly confined to the States where slavery existed; but it is a fact which may not be known to the Senator from Pennsylvania, that during this war large numbers of slaves have fled to the Northern States bordering on the slaveholding territory.
"It is not supposed that the bill will have any effect in the State of Pennsylvania or in the State of Illinois, unless it might, perhaps, be at Cairo, where there has been a large number of these refugees congregated, without any means of support; they followed the army there at different times.
"The provision of the bill in regard to holding courts, and some other provisions, are confined entirely to the rebellious States, and will have no operation in any State which was not in insurrection against this Government. I make this explanation to the Senator from Pennsylvania, and I think he will see the necessity of the bureau going into Kentucky and some of the other States, as much as into any of the Southern rebellious States."
Mr. Guthrie was opposed to the extension of the bill to his State. He said: "I should like to know the peculiar reasons why this bill is to be extended to the State of Kentucky. She has never been in rebellion. Though she has been overrun by rebel armies, and her fields laid waste, she has always had her full quota in the Union armies, and the blood of her sons has marked the fields whereon they have fought. Kentucky does not want and does not ask this relief. The freedmen in Kentucky are a part of our population; and where the old, and lame, and halt, and blind, and infants require care and attention they obtain it from the counties. Our whole organization for the support of the poor, through the agencies of the magistrates in the several counties, is complete."
[Illustration: Hon. Henry Wilson.]
On the other hand, Mr. Creswell, of Maryland, saw a necessity for the operation of the bill in his State. He said: "I have received, within the last two or three weeks, letters from gentlemen of the highest respectability in my State, asserting that combinations of returned rebel soldiers have been formed for the express purpose of persecuting, beating most cruelly, and in some cases actually murdering the returned colored soldiers of the republic. In certain sections of my State, the civil law affords no remedy at all. It is impossible there to enforce against these people so violating the law the penalties which the law has prescribed for these offenses. It is, therefore, necessary, in my opinion, that this bill shall extend over the State of Maryland."
Mr. Cowan, in the course of a speech on the bill, said: "Thank God! we are now rid of slavery; that is now gone." He also said: "Let the friends of the negro, and I am one, be satisfied to treat him as he is treated in Pennsylvania; as he is treated in Ohio; as he is treated every-where where people have maintained their sanity upon the question."
Mr. Wilson said: "The Senator from Pennsylvania tells us that he is the friend of the negro. What, sir, he the friend of the negro! Why, sir, there has hardly been a proposition before the Senate of the United States for the last five years, looking to the emancipation of the negro and the protection of his rights, that the Senator from Pennsylvania has not sturdily opposed. He has hardly ever uttered a word upon this floor the tendency of which was not to degrade and to belittle a weak and struggling race. He comes here to-day and thanks God that they are free, when his vote and his voice for five years, with hardly an exception, have been against making them free. He thanks God, sir, that your work and mine, our work which has saved a country and emancipated a race, is secured; while from the word 'go,' to this time, he has made himself the champion of 'how not to do it.' If there be a man on the floor of the American Senate who has tortured the Constitution of the country to find powers to arrest the voice of this nation which was endeavoring to make a race free, the Senator from Pennsylvania is the man; and now he comes here and thanks God that a work which he has done his best to arrest, and which we have carried, is accomplished. I tell him to-day that we shall carry these other measures, whether he thanks God for them or not, whether he opposes them or not." [Laughter and applause in the galleries.]
After an extended discussion, the Senate refused, by a vote of thirty-three against eleven, to adopt the amendment proposed by Mr. Cowan.