On the other hand, the policy of Congress, in the opinion of Mr. Dawson, was "a shameless outrage upon justice and every conservative principle,"—a "usurpation of Federal powers and a violation of State rights."

Mr. Maynard gave expression to his opinions by asking the significant question, "Whether the men who went into the rebellion did not by connecting themselves with a foreign government, by every act of which they were capable, denude themselves of their citizenship—whether they are not to be held and taken by this Government now as men denuded of their citizenship, having no rights as citizens except such as the legislative power of this Government may choose to confer upon them? In other words, is not the question on our part one of enfranchisement, not of disfranchisement?"

On the 17th of January, Mr. Baker addressed the House in favor of referring the pending bill to the Committee on Reconstruction. He was opposed to the use of the term "Government," without qualification or restriction, as applied to the lately revolted States. He opposed the second section, as causing the de facto governments to become valid for municipal purposes long before the scheme of reconstruction contemplated by the bill is effectuated. "To recognize them in advance," said he, "would be to incur the danger of further embarrassing the whole subject by the illogical consequences of our own illogical procedure."

At this stage Mr. Stevens arose and modified his substitute by withdrawing the second section, which contained the provision objected to by Mr. Baker as well as by his "ardent friend" Mr. Paine. Mr. Baker objected to that feature of the bill which provided that none should be deprived of the right to vote as a punishment for any crime save insurrection or treason. "The penitentiaries of these States," said he, "might disgorge their inmates upon the polls under the operation of this bill."

Mr. Grinnell was opposed to sending the question to the Committee on Reconstruction. He did not think it the most modest proposition in the world for Mr. Bingham to urge the reference to his committee of a great question which, the House generally desired to consider. "Let us have no delay," said he, "no recommitment, rather the earliest action upon this bill, as the requirement of the people who have saved the country, what the suffering implore, what justice demands, and what I believe God will approve."

"It is to my mind most clear," said Mr. Donnelly, in a speech upon the pending question, "that slavery having ceased to exist, the slaves became citizens; being citizens they are a part of the people, and being a part of the people no organization deserves a moment's consideration at our hands which attempts to ignore them."

Of the Southern States as under rebel rule, Mr. Donnelly remarked: "The whites are to make the laws, execute the laws, interpret the laws, and write the history of their own deeds; but below them; under them, there is to be a vast population—a majority of the whole people—seething and writhing in a condition of suffering, darkness, and wretchedness unparalleled in the world. And this is to be an American State! This is to be a component part of the great, humane, Christian republic of the world."

"It is hard," said Mr. Eldridge, in a speech against the bill, "sad to stand silently by and see the republic overthrown. It is indeed appalling to those accustomed from early childhood to revere and love the Constitution, to feel that it is in the keeping of those having the power and determination to destroy it. With the passage of this bill must die every hope and vestige of the government of the Constitution. It is indeed the final breaking up and dissolution of the union of the States by the usurpation and revolutionary act of Congress."

"Your work of restoration," said Mr. Warner, "will never commence until the Congress of the United States assumes to be one of the departments of the General Government. It will never commence until you have declared, in the language of the Supreme Court, that the Executive, as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, 'can not exercise a civil function.'"

"In less than two brief years of office," said Mr. Warner, speaking of the President, "he has exercised more questionable powers, assumed more doubtful constitutional functions, obliterated more constitutional barriers, and interposed more corrupt schemes to the expression of the popular sentiment or will of the people than all other Executives since the existence of the Government."

Mr. Spalding feared that the bill, should it become a law, would be found defective in not affording any protection to that loyal class of the inhabitants of those communities upon whom the elective franchise was conferred. "These colored men," said he, "who are now recognized by the Government as possessing the rights of freemen, are to be in jeopardy of being shot down like so many dogs when they attempt to visit the polls." He then offered an amendment, which was accepted by Mr. Stevens, by which a section was added to the bill suspending the writ of habeas corpus in the ten rebel States, and placing them under martial law until they should be admitted to representation in Congress under the provisions of the bill. In this section thus introduced may be seen the origin of that feature which, in an enlarged and extended form, gave character to the important measure ultimately adopted by Congress, which is popularly known as the "Military Reconstruction Bill."

The discussion was continued by Mr. Koontz. "It is a solemn, imperative duty," said he, "that this nation owes to its colored people to protect them against their own and the nation's foes. It would be a burning, lasting disgrace to the nation were it to hand them over to their enemies. I know of no way in which this protection can be better given than by extending to them the elective franchise. Place the ballot in the hands of the black man and you give him that which insures him respect as well as protection."

Mr. Scofield maintained that the ratification of the Constitutional Amendment by three-fourths of the loyal States was all that was necessary. "Twenty-three of the twenty-six States elected Legislatures instructed to adopt it. Very soon these twenty-three States, having a population in 1860 of twenty-one million five hundred thousand, and not less than twenty-seven millions now, will send to a perfidious Secretary the official evidence of the people's will. Delaware, Maryland, and Kentucky alone give a negative answer. Who, then, stands in the way? One old man who is charged by law with the duty of proclaiming the adoption of the amendment, but who has determined to incorporate into the Union the debris of the late Confederacy—he stands in the way."

"The Secretary is clever in work of this kind. An English nobleman was at one time exhibiting his kennel to an American friend, and passing by many of his showiest bloods, they came upon one that seemed nearly used up. 'This,' said the nobleman, 'is the most valuable animal in the pack, although he is old, lame, blind, and deaf.' 'How is that?' inquired the visitor. The nobleman explained: 'His education was good, to begin with, and his wonderful sense of smell is still unimpaired. We only take him out to catch the scent, and put the puppies on the track, and then return him to the kennel.' Do not suppose that I intend any comparison between the Secretary of State and that veteran hunter. Such a comparison would be neither dignified nor truthful, because the Englishman went on to say, 'I have owned that dog for thirteen years, and, hard as he looks, he never bit the hand that fed him nor barked on a false trail.'"

The laughter and applause which followed, were checked by the Speaker's gavel, which Mr. Schofield mistook for a notice to quit. "Has my time expired?" asked he. "It has not," replied the Speaker. "The Chair called you to order," said Mr. Stevens, in his seat, "for doing injustice to the dog."

Mr. Ward, who next addressed the House, presented a novel theory of the rebel war. "The people of the South," said he, "did not make war upon our republican form of government, nor seek to destroy it; they only sought to make two republics out of one. They are now, and have been all the time, as much attached to our system of free republican government as those who abuse them for disloyalty."

Mr. Ward presented his view of the state of things which would result from the passage of the pending bill. "These negro judges," said he, "will sit and hold this election backed by the United States army. That is rather an elevated position for the new-made freedman; the habeas corpus suspended, martial law proclaimed, the army at the back of the negro conducting an election to reconstruct States."

Mr. Plants addressed the House in favor of the pending bill. Of the reception given by the rebels to the proposed constitutional amendment, he said: "They have not only refused to accept the more than generous terms proposed, but have rejected them with contumely, and with the haughty and insulting bravado of assumed superiority demand that the nation shall submit to such terms as they shall dictate."

Mr. Miller, while advocating the pending measure, favored its reference to the Committee on Reconstruction. He gave a detailed account of the Constitutional Amendment, and its progress toward ratification among the Legislatures. He showed that the progress of reconstruction was delayed through fault of the rebels themselves. "It is not the desire of the great Republican party," said he, "to retard the restoration of those ten States to full political rights, but on the contrary they are anxious for a speedy adjustment, in order to secure adequate protection to all classes and conditions of men residing therein, and at the same time afford ample security to the United States Government against any future refractory course that might be pursued on the part of those States."

On the 21st of January the discussion was resumed by Mr. Kerr in a speech against the bill. He quoted extensively from judicial decisions and opinions to show that the rebel States were still entitled to their original rights in the Union. "The undisguised and most unrighteous purpose of all this kind of legislation," said he, "is to usurp powers over those States that can find no warrant except in the fierce will of the dominant party in this Congress. It is alike at war with every principle of good and free government, and with the highest dictates of humanity and national fraternity."

Mr. Higby was in favor of the pending bill, and opposed its reference to the Committee on Reconstruction. He preferred that it should be retained in the House, where it could be changed, matured, and finally passed. He contended that the rebel States should not come into the Union under any milder conditions than those imposed upon Territories recently passed upon in Congress. "Impartial suffrage," said he, "is required of each of those Territories as a condition precedent to their becoming States; and shall South Carolina, upon this basis of reconstruction, become a part of this Union upon different terms and principles entirely from those implied by the votes we have just given?"

Mr. Trimble denounced the pending legislation in violent terms. "By this act," said he, "you dissolve their connection with the Government of the United States, blot them out of existence as freemen, and degrade them to the condition of negro commonwealths. We have this monstrous proposition: to declare martial law in ten States of this Union; and in making this declaration, we, in my judgment, step upon the mangled ruins of the Constitution; for the Constitution plainly gives this power neither to the executive nor the legislative department of the Government."

Mr. Dodge, although a Republican, and in favor of "protecting the best interests of the colored man," could not vote for either of the propositions before the House. "The result of the passage of this bill," said he, "if it shall become operative, will be to disfranchise nearly the entire white population of the Southern States, and at the same time enfranchise the colored people and give them the virtual control in the proposed organization of the new State governments."

Mr. Dodge was particularly opposed to the military feature proposed by Mr. Spalding. "This is not likely," said he, "in the nature of things, to bring about an early reoerganization of the South. The commercial, the manufacturing, and the agricultural interests of this country, as they look at this matter, will see in it a continuance of taxation necessary to support this military array sent to these ten States."

"This bill, if executed," said Mr. Hise, in the course of a speech against the measure, "will in effect establish corrupt and despotic local governments for all those States, and place in all the offices the most ignorant, degraded, and corrupt portion of their population, who would rule and ruin without honesty or skill the actual property-holders and native inhabitants, making insecure life, liberty, and property, and still holding those States in their Federal relations subject to the most rapacious, fierce, and unrelenting despotism that ever existed, that of a vindictive and hostile party majority of a Congress in which they have no voice or representation, and by which irresponsible majority they would be mercilessly oppressed for that very reason; and this will be continued, I fear, until the country shall again be precipitated into civil war."

Since the "beneficent conservative power" of the President was overcome by two-thirds of Congress, Mr. Hise could see safety for the nation in but one direction. "Our only hope," said he, "of the preservation of a free government is in the judicial department of the government, and in the decisions of the Supreme Court pronouncing your acts unconstitutional and void."

Mr. Raymond preferred the Constitutional Amendment as the basis of reconstruction, and blamed the party in power for abandoning that policy. "Last year," said he, "that man was untrue to his party obligations who did not stand by it; this year the man is declared to be faithless to his party who does."

Having spoken at considerable length against the pending measure, Mr. Raymond said: "For these reasons, sir, reasons of policy and of authority, I do not think we ought to pass this bill. I do not believe it would be at all effective in securing the objects at which we aim, or that it would conduce in the slightest degree to promote peace and secure equal rights among the people upon whom it is to take effect. And I can not help believing that it contains provisions directly at war with specific and peremptory prohibitions of the Constitution."

Mr. Raymond defended the Secretary of State against the accusations of Mr. Schofield. Mr. Seward was not "a perfidious old man," but one "venerable, not more for age than for the signal services to his country and the cause of freedom every-where, by which his long and laborious life, devoted wholly, from early manhood, to the public service, has been made illustrious." The Secretary of State acted under law. If Congress expected him to act under the theory that three-fourths of the loyal States were sufficient for the ratification of the Constitutional Amendment, they should pass a law to that effect.

"The man," said Mr. Shellabarger, "who is now the acting President of the United States, once said to me, in speaking of a bill like the one now before the House, that it was a measure to dissolve the Union. That proposition has been so often repeated by members upon the other side of this hall, that I have thought the House would probably pardon me if I should attempt to condense into a few sentences a suggestion or two in regard to that declaration, repeated so often and worn out so thoroughly as it is."

Mr. Shellabarger maintained the right of governments to withhold from those who discard all the obligations pertaining to their citizenship the powers and rights which come alone from performing these obligations. "This identical principle," said he, "was asserted at the origin of your Government in the legislation of every one of the States of the Confederation; was repeated and reenacted by three, at least, of the first Congresses under the Constitution, and has been virtually reenacted by being kept in force by every subsequent Congress which ever met under the Constitution."

"I see such diversity of opinion on this side of the House," said Mr. Stevens, "upon any question of reconstruction, that, if I do not change my mind, I shall to-morrow relieve the House from any question upon the merits of this bill by moving to lay it on the table."

On the 26th of January the discussion was renewed. Mr. Ross, considering the argument on the constitutionality of the measure exhausted, endeavored to show that the bill was "in clear conflict with the action of the party in power during the entire progress of the war, and in conflict with the clearly-expressed opinions of the Executive of the nation, the Supreme Court, and the Congress of the United States."

Mr. Ashley withdrew his amendment to Mr. Stevens' bill that the House might, in Committee of the Whole, have an opportunity to perfect the bill so as to send it to the Senate within two or three days.

"I ask the gentleman," said Mr. Conkling, "to state his objection to having a subject like this committed to a committee which has now no work upon its hands, and which has a right to report at any time."

"The Committee on Reconstruction," replied Mr. Ashley, "have held no meetings during this entire session up to this hour. Several bills proposed by gentlemen have been referred to that committee during this session, upon which they have taken no action. If the committee ever gets together again—which I doubt, as it is a large committee, composed of both branches of Congress—I have but little hope of their being able to agree. The chairman of the committee on the part of the Senate, as is well known, is absorbed in his efforts to perfect the financial measures of the country, and I fear that if this bill goes to that committee it will go to its grave, and that it will not, during the life of the Thirty-ninth Congress, see the light. If I were opposed to these bills, I would vote to send them to that committee as sending them to their tomb."

"There is no difficulty," responded Mr. Conkling, "in having prompt consideration of any thing which may be sent to the committee. It was created originally solely to deal with this subject. It was, at first, broken into four sub-committees, that the work of gathering evidence might be more advantageously and speedily carried on. It became one committee, usually working together, only during a few weeks immediately preceding the bringing forward of its ultimate propositions. It would not be decorous for me to praise the committee or the work it did, but I may say with propriety that if it ever was a good committee, if it ever should have been created and composed as it was, it is a good committee now—better than it ever was before; better, because more familiar with this subject, because its members, having now become acquainted with each other's views, and having become accustomed to act with each other, and having studied the whole subject committed to them, can proceed with much more hope of good results than ever before. Having a right to report at any time, and being led, on the part of this House, by the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens], I see no reason why it can not consider and digest wisely and promptly whatever may be referred to it and make report."

"We are now considering a report from that very committee," said Mr. Stevens. "That committee made a report, and I have offered a substitute for the bill which they reported. If the gentleman thinks the report of that committee is best, then let him vote against my substitute. But why send this subject back again to the committee? The gentleman knows as well as I do how many different opinions there are in that committee; some of us believe in one thing, and some of us in another; some of us are very critical, and some of us are not. The idea that we can consider any thing in that committee, constituted as it is, in less than a fortnight, it seems to me is wholly out of the question; and as we have only about some twenty working days in which to mature this bill in both branches of Congress, if we send this subject to that committee and let it take its time to consider it, and then have it reported here and considered again, I certainly need not say to gentlemen that that would be an end of the matter, at least for this session."

"The gentleman from Pennsylvania concurred in that report," replied Mr. Conkling. "He had his full share in molding it and making it precisely what it was. He supported it then; now he offers a substitute for it. Why? Because the time which has elapsed since then, and the events which have transpired, have modified, he thinks, the exigencies of the case. Is not that as applicable to the judgment of the committee as to his own? Is it not proper that it should have the opportunity of acting for once in the light of all the facts and circumstances as they are to day?"

"Two or three bills on this subject," said Mr. Stevens, "have been referred during this session to that committee. Why has not the committee acted on them?"

"If I were the chairman of the committee on the part of this House," replied Mr. Conkling, "I should be able to answer that question, because then I could tell why I had not called the committee together. But as I am only a subordinate member of the committee, whose business it is to come when I am called, and never to call others, I am entirely unable to give the information for which the gentleman inquires."

"If I could have any assurance," said Mr. Ashley, "that this committee would be able to report promptly a bill upon which this House could probably agree, I would not hesitate a single moment to vote for the reference of this measure to that committee; but, believing that they will be unable to agree, I shall vote against a recommitment."

In describing the character of the opposition arrayed against the Congressional plan of reconstruction, Mr. Ashley used the following emphatic language: "Why, sir, the assumption, the brazen-faced assumption of men who during the entire war were in open or secret alliance with the rebels, coming here now and joining hands with the apostate at the other end of the avenue, who is the leader, the recognized leader of a counter-revolution—a negative rebellion, as I said awhile ago—passes comprehension."

"If intended to apply to us," said Mr. Winfield, speaking for the Democratic members, "it is a base and unfounded slander."

"So far as I am concerned, it is a base lie," said Mr. Hunter. For using these words, "condemned by gentlemen every-where, as well as by parliamentary law," the House passed a vote of censure on Mr. Hunter, and he was required to go forward and receive a public reprimand from the Speaker.

On the 28th of January, the House having resumed the consideration of the bill to restore to the rebel States their full political rights, Mr. Julian expressed his belief that the time had come for action, and that having the great subject before them, they should proceed earnestly, and with little delay, to mature some measure which would meet the demand of the people. "Let us tolerate no further procrastination," said he; "and while we justly hold the President responsible for the trouble and mal-administration which now curse the South and disturb the peace of the country, let us remember that the national odium already perpetually linked with the name of Andrew Johnson will be shared by us if we fail in the great duty which is now brought to our doors."

Mr. Julian differed with many others in his opinion of the real wants of the rebel States. "What these regions need," said he, "above all things, is not an easy and quick return to their forfeited rights in the Union, but government, the strong arm of power, outstretched from the central authority here in Washington, making it safe for the freedmen of the South, safe for her loyal white men, safe for emigrants from the Old World and from the Northern States to go and dwell there; safe for Northern capital and labor, Northern energy and enterprise, and Northern ideas to set up their habitation in peace, and thus found a Christian civilization and a living democracy amid the ruins of the past."

"It would seem," said Mr. Cullom, "that the men who have been struggling so hard to destroy this country were and still are the instruments, however wicked, by which we are driven to give the black man justice, whether we will or no.

"By the unholy persistence of rebels slavery was at last overthrown. Their contempt of the Constitutional Amendment, now before the country, will place in the hands of every colored man of the South the ballot."

The bill before the House was referred to the Committee on Reconstruction by a vote of eighty-eight to sixty-five.

On the 4th of February, Mr. Williams, of Oregon, introduced into the Senate "A bill to provide for the more efficient government of the insurrectionary States," which was referred to the Committee on Reconstruction.



This bill, having been considered by the Committee, was adopted by them, and was reported by their chairman to the House, on the 6th of February, in the following form:

"Whereas, the pretended State Governments of the late so-called Confederate States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas were set up without the authority of Congress and without the sanction of the people; and whereas said pretended governments afford no adequate protection for life or property, but countenance and encourage lawlessness and crime; and whereas it is necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in said so-called States until loyal and Republican State Governments can be legally established: Therefore,

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That said so-called States shall be divided into military districts and made subject to the military authority of the United States, as hereinafter prescribed; and for that purpose Virgina shall constitute the first district, North Carolina and South Carolina the second district, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida the third district, Mississippi and Arkansas the fourth district, and Louisiana and Texas the fifth district.

"SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the General of the army to assign to the command of each of said districts an officer of the regular army not below the rank of brigadier general, and to detail a sufficient force to enable such officer to perform his duties and enforce his authority within the district to which he is assigned.

"SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of each officer assigned, as aforesaid, to protect all persons in their rights of person and property, to suppress insurrection, disorder, and violence, and to punish, or cause to be punished, all disturbers of the public peace and criminals; and to this end he may allow civil tribunals to take jurisdiction of and to try offenders, or when in his judgment it may be necessary for the trial of offenders he shall have power to organize military commissions or tribunals for that purpose, any thing in the constitution and laws of the so-called States to the contrary notwithstanding; and all legislative or judicial proceedings or processes to prevent the trial or proceedings of such tribunals, and all interference by said pretended State governments with the exercise of military authority under this act shall be void and of no effect.

"SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That courts and judicial officers of the United States shall not issue writs of habeas corpus in behalf of persons in military custody unless some commissioned officer on duty in the district wherein the person is detained shall indorse upon said petition a statement certifying upon honor that he has knowledge or information as to the cause and circumstances of the alleged detention, and that he believes the same to be rightful; and further, that he believes that the indorsed petition is preferred in good faith and in furtherance of justice, and not to hinder or delay the punishment of crime. All persons put under military arrest, by virtue of this act, shall be tried without unnecessary delay, and no cruel or unusual punishment shall be inflicted.

"SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That no sentence of any military commission or tribunal hereby authorized, affecting the life or liberty of any person, shall be executed until it is approved by the officer in command of the district; and the laws and regulations for the government of the army shall not be affected by this act, except in so far as they conflict with its provisions."

Mr. Stevens, having been remonstrated with by a Democratic member for expressing a wish to bring the question to vote without a prolonged debate, replied: "I am very willing that the debate which has been going on here for three weeks shall all be read over by the gentleman whenever he can take time to read it." "On behalf of the American people," said the same member, "I ask more time for debate." "I will see what the American people think of it in the morning. If they are generally for a prolongation of the debate, of course I will go with them. But I will wait until then, in order to ascertain what the people want."

On the following day, February 7th, Mr. Stevens introduced the discussion with a brief speech. "This bill provides," said he, that "the ten disorganized States shall be divided into five military districts, and that the commander of the army shall take charge of them through his lieutenants as governors, or you may call them commandants if you choose, not below the grade of brigadiers, who shall have the general supervision of the peace, quiet, and the protection of the people, loyal and disloyal, who reside within those precincts; and that to do so he may use, as the law of nations would authorize him to do, the legal tribunals where-ever he may deem them competent; but they are to be considered of no validity per se, of no intrinsic force, no force in consequence of their origin, the question being wholly within the power of the conqueror, and to remain until that conqueror shall permanently supply their place with something else. I will say, in brief, that is the whole bill. It does not need much examination. One night's rest after its reading is enough to digest it."

"Of all the various plans," said Mr. Brandegee, "which have been discussed in this hall for the past two years, to my mind it seems the plainest, the most appropriate, the freest from constitutional objection, and the best calculated to accomplish the master aims of reconstruction.

"It begins the work of reconstruction at the right end, and employs the right tools for its accomplishment. It begins at the point where Grant left off the work, at Appomattox Court-house, and it holds those revolted communities in the grasp of war until the rebellion shall have laid down its spirit, as two years ago it formally laid down its arms."

Mr. Le Blond characterized the Committee on Reconstruction as "the maelstrom committee, which swallows up every thing that is good and gives out every thing that is evil."

"There is nothing left," said he, in the conclusion of his speech, "but quiet submission to your tyranny, or a resort to arms on the part of the American people to defend themselves.

"I do not desire war; but as one American citizen, I do prefer war to cowardly submission and total destruction of the fundamental principles of our Government. In my honest conviction, nothing but the strong arm of the American people, wielded upon the bloody battle-field, will ever restore civil liberty to the American people again."

"Is it possible," said Mr. Finck, "that in this Congress we can find men bold enough and bad enough to conspire against the right of trial by jury, the great privilege of habeas corpus; men who are willing to reverse the axiom that the military should be subordinate to the civil power, and to establish the abhorred doctrine resisted by the brave and free men of every age, that the military should be superior to the civil authority?"

"It does not seem to me," said Mr. Pike, "that the change proposed to be made by this bill in the management of the Southern States is so violent as gentlemen on the other side would have us suppose. They seem to believe that now the people of those States govern themselves; but the truth is, since the suppression of the rebellion, that is, since the surrender of the rebel armies in 1865, the government of those States have been virtually in the hands of the President of the United States.

"This bill does not transfer the government of those States from the people to the officers of the army, but only from the President to those officers."

Mr. Farnsworth, who next addressed the House, gave numerous authenticated instances of outrages and murders perpetrated by rebels upon Union soldiers and citizens. "It is no longer a question of doubt," said he, "it can not be denied that the loyal men, the Union soldiers and the freedmen in these disorganized and disloyal States are not protected. They are murdered with impunity; they are despoiled of their goods and their property; they are banished, scattered, driven from the country."

Mr. Rogers denounced the pending bill in most emphatic language. "You will carry this conflict on," said he, "until you bring about a war that will shake this country as with the throes of an earthquake; a war that will cause the whole civilized world to witness our dreadful shock and fill nature with agony in all her parts, with which the one we have passed through is not at all to be compared."

He eulogized President Johnson in the highest terms. "Free government," said he, "brought him from a poor boy to as great a man as ever lived, and he deserves as much credit as Washington and will yet receive it. He will not submit to have the citadel of liberty invaded and destroyed without using the civil and military powers to prevent it. He will maintain the Constitution, sir, even to the spilling of blood."

Mr. Bingham proposed to amend the bill to make it accord with his theory by substituting the phrase "the said States" for the words "so-called States." He also proposed some limitation of the extent to which the habeas corpus should be suspended. "When these men," said he, "shall have fulfilled their obligations" and when the great people themselves shall have put, by their own rightful authority, into the fundamental law the sublime decree, the nation's will, that no State shall deny to any mortal man the equal protection of the laws—not of the laws of South Carolina alone, but of the laws national and State, and above all, sir, of the great law, the Constitution of our own country, which is the supreme law of the land, from Georgia to Oregon, and from Maine to Florida—then, sir, by assenting thereto those States may be restored at once. To that end, sir, I labor and for that I strive."

"Unless the population of these States," said Mr. Lawrence, "is to be left to the merciless rule of the rebels, who employ the color of authority they exercise under illegal but de facto State governments to oppress all who are loyal without furnishing them any protection against murder and all the wrongs that rebels can inflict on loyal men, we can not, dare not refuse to pass this bill."

Since, however, the bill did not propose any "plan of reoerganizing State governments in the late rebel States," Mr. Lawrence read amendments which he desired to introduce at the proper time, providing that the laws of the District of Columbia, "not locally inapplicable," should be in force in the rebel territory and that the United States courts should have jurisdiction.

Mr. Hise declared this a "stupid, cruel, unwise, and unconstitutional measure." "If I had not been prepared," said he, "by other measures hitherto adopted and others hitherto introduced into this House, I should not have been less startled at the introduction of this than if I had received the sudden intelligence that the ten States enumerated in this bill had been sunk by some great convulsion of nature and submerged under an oceanic deluge."

"This is not, strictly speaking, a measure of reconstruction," said Mr. Ingersoll, "but a measure looking simply to the enforcement of order. It seems to me clear, then, that, not only under the laws of war and under the laws of nations, but under the express authority of the Constitution itself, Congress possesses the rightful authority to establish military governments, as proposed by the bill under consideration."

Referring to Mr. Le Blond's anticipated war, Mr. Ingersoll said: "I desire to ask the gentleman where he is going to get his soldiers to make war upon the Government and the Congress of the United States? You will hardly find them in the rebel States. They have had enough of war; they have been thoroughly whipped, and do not desire to be whipped again. You will not get them from the loyal people of the Northern or Southern States. If you get any at all, you may drum up a few recruits from the Democratic ranks, but in the present weak and shattered condition of that party you would hardly be able to raise a very formidable army, and I tell the gentleman if the party decreases in the same ratio in the coming year as it has in the last, the whole party together would not form a respectable corps d'armee."

"How about the bread and butter brigade?" interposed a member.

"I did not think of that heroic and patriotic band," replied Mr. Ingersoll, "but I do not apprehend much danger from that source; it would be a bloodless conflict; we would have no use either for the sword or musket; all that would be necessary to make a conquest over them would be found in the commissary department. Order out the bread and butter and peace would be restored."

Mr. Shanklin warned the House of the danger of establishing military governments in the South. "You may be in the plenitude of power to-day," he said, in conclusion, "and you may be ousted to-morrow. And I hope, if you do not cease these outrages upon the people of the country, such as you propose here, such as are attempting to be inflicted by your Freedmen's Bureau and your Civil Rights Bills, that the time will not be long before that army which the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Ingersoll] seemed to think could not be raised—an army armed with ballots, and not with bayonet—will march to the polls and hurl the advocates of this and its kindred measures out of their places, and fill them with men who appreciate more highly and justly the rights of citizens and of freemen, with statesmen whose minds can grasp our whole country and its rights and its wants, and whose hearts are in sympathy with the noble, the brave, and the just, whether they live in the sunny South or the ice-bound regions of the North."

"I hail this measure," said Mr. Thayer, "as interrupting this baleful calm, which, if not disturbed by a proper exercise of legislative power upon this subject, may be succeeded by disaster and collision. It furnishes at least an initial point from which we can start in the consideration and adjustment of the great question of reconstruction. I regard this as a measure which lays the grasp of Congress upon this great question—a grasp which is to hold on to it until it shall be finally settled. I regard it as a measure which is to take that great question out of that sea of embarrassment and sluggish inactivity in which, through the course which the President has thought proper to pursue, it now rests."

"For our neglect," said Mr. Harding, of Illinois, "to exert the military power of the Government, we are responsible for the blood and suffering which disgrace this republic. Let us go back, then, or rather let us come up to where we were before, and exercise jurisdiction over the territory conquered from the rebels, which jurisdiction the President has given up to those rebels, to the great suffering and injury of the Government and of loyal people."

"Let it be remembered all the time," said Mr. Shellabarger, "that your country has a right to its life, and that the powers of your Government are given for its preservation. Let it be remembered that one portion of your republic has fallen into a state of rebellion, and is still in a state of war against your Government, and that the powers of the Government are to be exercised for the purposes of the protection and the defense of the loyal, and the disloyal too, in that part of the republic; and that, for the purpose of that defense, you are authorized to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, and to exercise such extraordinary powers as are necessary to the preservation of the great life of the nation. Let these things be remembered; and then let it also be remembered that the law-making power of the Government not only controls the President, but controls the purposes and the ends and the objects of war, and, of course, the movements of the armies that are to be employed in war. Let these things be remembered, and it seems to me that all the difficulties with which it is sought to surround this measure will at once disappear."

"What carried our elections overwhelmingly?" asked Mr. Hotchkiss. "It was the story of the Southern refugees told to the people of the North and the West. They told us they demanded protection. They enlisted the sympathy of Northern soldiers by telling that the very guerrillas who hung upon the skirts of our army during the war were now murdering Southern soldiers who fought on the Union side, and murdering peaceful citizens, murdering black men who were our allies. We promised the people if we were indorsed we would come back here and protect them, and yet not a step has been taken."

Mr. Griswold regretted to vote against a measure proposed by those whom he believed to "have at heart the best interest of the whole country." "It seems to me," said he, "that the provisions of this bill will lead us into greater danger than is justified by the evils we seek to correct. It is, Mr. Speaker, a tremendous stride that we propose to make by this bill to subject to military control ten million people who have once been partners of this common country, and who are to be united with us in its future trials and fortunes. This bill proposes to place all the rights of life, liberty, and happiness exclusively in the control of a mere military captain. This bill contains no provisions for the establishment in the future of civil governments there; it simply provides that for an indefinite period in the future a purely military power shall have exclusive control and jurisdiction there. That is, therefore, to me, another and a very serious objection to this bill."

"There is a necessity," said Mr. Raymond, "for some measure of protection to the people of the Southern States. I think it is clear that life, liberty, and property are not properly guarded by law, are not safe throughout those Southern States. They are not properly protected by the courts and judicial tribunals of those States; they are not properly protected by the civil authorities that are in possession of political power in those States."

Of the pending bill, he said: "It is a simple abnegation of all attempts for the time to protect the people in the Southern States by the ordinary exercise of civil authority. It hands over all authority in those States to officers of the army of the United States, and clothes them as officers of the army with complete, absolute, unrestricted power to administer the affairs of those States according to their sovereign will and pleasure. In my opinion there has not occurred an emergency which justifies a resort to this extreme remedy. The military force ought to follow the civil authority, and not lead it, not take its place, not supersede it."

"We must compel obedience to the Union," said Mr. Garfield, "and demand protection for its humblest citizen wherever the flag floats. We must so exert the power of the nation that it shall be deemed both safe and honorable to have been loyal in the midst of treason. We must see to it that the frightful carnival of blood now raging in the South, shall continue no longer. The time has come when we must lay the heavy hand of military authority upon these rebel communities and hold them in its grasp till their madness is past."

Mr. Stevens having expressed a wish to have an immediate vote, Mr. Banks remarked: "I believe that a day or two devoted to a discussion of this subject of the reconstruction of the Government will bring us to a solution in which the two houses of Congress will agree, in which the people of this country will sustain us, and in which the President of the United States will give us his support."

"I have not the advantage," replied Mr. Stevens, "of the secret negotiations which the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Banks] has, and from which he seems to expect such perfect harmony between the President and the Congress of the United States—within a few days. If I had that advantage, I do not know what effect it might have upon me. Not having it, I can not, of course, act upon it."

"In the remarks which I made," said Mr. Banks, "I made no allusion to any negotiations with the President. I have had no negotiations with the President of the United States, nor do I know his opinions, and in the vote which I shall give upon this question, neither the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] nor any other man has the right to assume that I accept the policy of the Executive in the smallest particular. I hope for a change of his position; I think that it is not impossible. At all events, I think it is something which is worth our while to try for."

The previous question was moved by Mr. Stevens; but a majority refusing to second the motion, the discussion was continued.

Mr. Kasson denied the existence of a right in Congress "to establish a military government over people who have been in insurrection." He proposed as a substitute for the pending measure "A bill to establish an additional article of war for the more complete suppression of the insurrection against the United States." This provided for a division of the rebel territory into military districts, as did the original bill, and authorized commanders to declare martial law wherever it should be necessary for the "complete suppression of violence and disorder."

Mr. Ashley moved an amendment providing for the restoration to loyal owners of property confiscated by the rebel government, and providing that military government should cease so soon as the people of the rebel States should adopt State constitutions securing to all citizens equal protection of the laws, including the right of the elective franchise, and should ratify the proposed amendment to the Constitution.

Mr. Raymond thought that, on account of the great diversity of opinion, the whole subject should be referred to a select committee, who should be instructed to report within three or four days a bill which should "provide temporarily for the protection of rights and the preservation of the peace in the States lately in rebellion, and also for the speedy admission of those States to their relations in the Union upon the basis of the Constitutional Amendment." Thus he hoped a result could be reached which "would command the support of Congress and of the country, and the approval, or at least the assent, of the Executive."

Mr. Boutwell remarked that previous propositions having been referred to the Committee on Reconstruction, they had agreed upon the bill before the House with a unanimity which no other report had ever obtained, nor had any bill submitted by that committee ever been so carefully considered as this. "To-day," said he, "there are eight millions and more of people, occupying six hundred and thirty thousand square miles of the territory of this country, who are writhing under cruelties nameless in their character—injustice such as has not been permitted to exist in any other country in modern times; and all this because in this capital there sits enthroned a man who, so far as the executive department is concerned, guides the destinies of the republic in the interest of rebels; and because, also, in those ten former States rebellion itself, inspired by the executive department of this Government, wields all authority, and is the embodiment of law and power every-where. Until in the South this obstacle to reconstruction is removed, there can be no effectual step taken toward the reoerganization of the Government."

"A well man needs no remedies," said Mr. Niblack, in a speech against the bill; "it is only when he is sick that you can require him to submit to medicinal applications. A country at peace does not need and ought not to allow martial law and other summary remedies incident to a state of war. The highest and dearest interests of this country are made subordinate to party exigencies and to special and particular interests. No wonder, then, that trade languishes and commerce declines."

On the 12th of February, Mr. Bingham proposed an amendment making the restoration of the rebel States conditional upon their adoption of the Constitutional Amendment, and imposing upon them, meanwhile, the military government provided by the pending bill.

Mr. Kelley advocated the bill as reported from the committee. "This," said he, "is little more than a mere police bill. The necessity for it arises from the perfidy of the President of the United States. Had he been true to the duties of his high office and his public and repeated pledges, there would have been no necessity for considering such a bill."

"Throughout the region of the unreconstructed States," said Mr. Maynard, "the animating, life-giving principle of the rebellion is as thoroughly in possession of the country and of all the political power there to-day as it ever has been since the first gun was fired upon Fort Sumter. The rebellion is alive. It is strong—strong in the number of its votaries, strong in its social influences, strong in its political power, strong in the belief that the executive department of this Government is in sympathy and community of purpose with them, strong in the belief that the controlling majority of the supreme judiciary of the land is with them in legal opinion, strong in the belief that the controversy in this body between impracticable zeal and incorrigible timidity will prevent any thing of importance being accomplished or any legislation matured."

"It is," said Mr. Allison, "because of the interference of the President of the United States with the military law which exists in those States that this bill is rendered necessary. In my judgment, if we had to-day an Executive who was desirous of enforcing the laws of the United States to protect loyal men in those States, instead of defending the rebel element, this bill would not be needed."

Mr. Blaine submitted an amendment providing that any one of the "late so-called Confederate States" might be restored to representation and relieved of military rule when, in addition to having accepted the Constitutional Amendment, it should have conferred the elective franchise impartially upon all male citizens over twenty-one years of age.

Mr. Blaine maintained that the people in the elections of 1866 had declared in favor of "universal, or, at least, impartial suffrage as the basis of restoration."

On the 13th of February the discussion was continued. "That the spirit of rebellion still lives," said Mr. Van Horn, of New York, "and now thrives in the South no sane man can deny; that the determination exists to make their rebellion honorable and the loyalty of the South a lasting disgrace and a permanent badge of dishonor is equally true and can not be denied. The leaders of the rebellion, being in power in all the ten States unreconstructed, still defy the authority of the United States to a great extent, and deny the-power of the loyal millions of the country, who have saved our nation's life against their treason and rebellion, to prescribe terms of settlement of this great controversy, and deny also that they have lost any rights they had before the war or committed any treason against the Government."

The measure before the House, as it came from the Committee on Reconstruction, "was not intended as a reconstruction bill," according to the interpretation of Mr. Stevens. "It was intended simply as a police bill to protect the loyal men from anarchy and murder, until this Congress, taking a little more time, can suit gentlemen in a bill for the admission of all those rebel States upon the basis of civil government."

The various amendments proposed were designed by their authors to add a plan of reconstruction to the pending bill. Of these Mr. Boutwell remarked: "Without examining into the details of the amendments, I have this to say, that any general proposition for the restoration of these States to the Union upon any basis not set forth in an act of Congress is fraught with the greatest danger to future peace and prosperity of the republic."

The amendments of Mr. Bingham and Mr. Blaine were finally combined by their authors. The combination made an amendment providing that the "States lately in insurrection" should be restored and relieved of military rule upon their ratification of the Constitutional Amendment and adoption of impartial suffrage. In order to "disentangle what seemed so much entangled," it was moved that the bill be recommitted to the Judiciary Committee, with instructions to report back immediately the amendment of Messrs. Blaine and Bingham.

Mr. Stevens then addressed the House, premising that in his state of health a few words must suffice. He felt a moral depression in viewing the condition of the party responsible for the doings of Congress. "For the last few months," said he, "Congress has been sitting here, and while the South has been bleeding at every pore, Congress has done nothing to protect the loyal people there, white or black, either in their persons, in their liberty, or in their property."

Of his previous bill, which had been consigned to its tomb in being referred to the Committee on Reconstruction, Mr. Stevens said: "I thought it was a good bill; I had labored upon it in conjunction with several committees of loyal men from the South for four months; I had altered and realtered it, written and rewritten it four several times, and found that it met the approbation of numerous societies and meetings in all the Southern States. It was, therefore, not altogether my fault if it was not so good a bill as might be found; but I did think that, after all, it was uncivil, unjust, indecent not to attempt to amend it and make it better, to see whether we could do something to enable our friends in the Southern States to establish institutions according to the principles of republican government."

Mr. Stevens deprecated a disposition among his friends to be hypercritical in relation to mere verbal details. "If I might presume upon my age," said he, "without claiming any of the wisdom of Nestor, I would suggest to the young gentlemen around me that the deeds of this burning crisis, of this solemn day, of this thrilling moment, will cast their shadows far into the future and will make their impress upon the annals of our history, and that we shall appear upon the bright pages of that history just in so far as we cordially, without guile, without bickering, without small criticisms, lend our aid to promote the great cause of humanity and universal liberty."

The question being taken on the motion to refer to the Committee on the Judiciary, it was decided in the negative—yeas, 69; nays, 94. The question was then taken on the passage of the bill. It passed the House—one hundred and nine voting in the affirmative, and fifty-five in the negative.

"I wish to inquire, Mr. Speaker," said Mr. Stevens, "if it is in order for me now to say that we indorse the language of good old Laertes, that Heaven rules as yet, and there are gods above."

At the evening session of the Senate on the same day, the bill "to provide for the more efficient government of the insurrectionary States" was announced as having passed the House, and at once received its first reading. Mr. Williams gave notice of his intention to propose an amendment, but on the following day, when the Senate proceeded to consider the subject, he said that being impressed with the necessity of the passage of the bill, and fearing that any amendment might endanger if not defeat it, he had concluded not to present his amendment.

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."

"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."

Extended arguments against the measure were made by Mr. Johnson and Mr. Hendricks. At twelve o'clock the minority desired to adjourn, and the friends of the measure would have been willing to do so could an understanding have been had as to an hour on the following day when the vote would be taken.

Mr. McDougall would submit to no such-limitation upon free speech. "I do not expect myself," said he, "to speak at any great length, but yet if upon careful consideration I should choose to do so, or if possessing the recollections of past times and memories and reasons and considerations that yet lay in my hidden memories I shall choose to talk for a longer period, I shall claim the right to do so."

"I am anxious to give my views on this subject," said Mr. Davis. "I do not feel able to give them at this late hour of the night; still, I believe I could hang on for three or four hours if I was disposed to do so, [laughter,] but I believe that to-morrow I should not occupy more than at the farthest two hours of the time of the Senate."

Numerous amendments were proposed, much discursive talk was indulged in, and many motions to adjourn were voted down. At length, three o'clock of Saturday morning, February 16th, having arrived, an adjournment was brought about by means of a very long amendment proposed by Mr. Henderson as a substitute for the entire bill. This opening up a new discussion, the friends of the pending bill saw the impossibility of coming to a speedy vote, and consented to an adjournment.

On the reaessembling of the Senate on Saturday, February 16th, Mr. Doolittle delivered a very long speech in opposition to the bill, and in vindication of his political course which had been called in question by the "Radicals of Wisconsin." "I rise," said he, "to plead for what I believe to be the life of the republic, and for that spirit which gives it life. I stand here, also, to answer for myself; because, foreseeing and resisting from the beginning what I knew must follow as the logical consequences of the adoption of certain fundamental heresies originating in Massachusetts, and of which the honorable Senator upon my right [Mr. Sumner] is the advocate and champion, I have been for more than eighteen months denounced in my State by many of my former political associates and friends."

At the evening session of the Senate, Mr. Saulsbury and Mr. Davis delivered extended speeches against the measure. "I appeal to you, sir," said Mr. Saulsbury; "I appeal to those who exercise political power in this country now, by all the memories that cluster around the glorious past; by the recollection of the noble deeds and heroic sufferings of our ancestors, for you and for me, for your posterity and for my posterity; by all the bright realizations which might be ours in this present hour; by all the bright future and all the glories which are in that immediate future, stop your aggressions upon the Constitution of your country."

The vote having been taken on the amendment proposed by Mr. Johnson and the substitute of Mr. Henderson, they were both rejected.

Mr. Sherman then offered an amendment in the nature of a substitute, the preamble of which declared that "No legal State governments or adequate protection for life or property now exist in the rebel States." It retained the military feature of the original bill, with the modification that the President, instead of the General of the army, should appoint district commanders. The most important part of the amendment was a plan of reconstruction, which added a new section to the bill in the following form:

"SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That when the people of any one of said rebel States shall have formed a Constitution of government in conformity with the Constitution of the United States in all respects, framed by a convention of delegates elected by the male citizens of said State twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition of servitude, who have been resident in said State for one year previous to the day of such election, except such as may be disfranchised for participation in the rebellion, or for felony at common law, and when such Constitution shall provide that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all such persons as have the qualifications herein stated for electors of delegates, and when such Constitution shall be ratified by a majority of the persons voting on the question of ratification who are qualified as electors of delegates, and when such Constitution shall have been submitted to Congress for examination and approval, and Congress shall have appointed the same, and when said State, by a vote of its Legislature elected under said Constitution, shall have adopted the amendment to the Constitution of the United States proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, and known as article fourteen, and when said article shall have become a part of the Constitution of the United States, said State shall be declared entitled to representation in Congress, and Senators and Representatives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking the oath prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this act shall be inoperative in said State."

Mr. Sherman made a brief speech in explanation of the bill. "All there is material in the bill," said he, "is in the first two lines of the preamble and the fifth section, in my judgment. The first two lines may lay the foundation, by adopting the proclamation issued first to North Carolina, that the rebellion had swept away all the civil governments in the Southern States; and the fifth section points out the mode by which the people of those States, in their own manner, without any limitations or restrictions by Congress, may get back to full representation in Congress."

After numerous propositions to amend, and speeches against the bill by Messrs. Hendricks, Cowan, Buckalew and McDougall, the Senate reached a vote upon the bill at six o'clock on Sunday morning. Twenty-nine voted in the affirmative, namely:

Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Cattell, Chandler, Conness, Cragin, Creswell, Fogg, Frelinghuysen, Grimes, Howard, Howe, Kirkwood, Lane, Morgan, Morrill, Poland, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Ross, Sherman, Stewart, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Wade, Willey, Williams, Wilson, and Yates.

Ten voted in the negative, to-wit:

Messrs. Buckalew, Cowan, Davis, Doolittle, Hendricks, McDougall, Nesmith, Norton, Patterson, and Saulsbury.

The Senate amended the title of the bill by substituting the word "rebel" for "insurrectionary." Thus passed in the Senate the great measure entitled "A bill to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States."

On Monday, February 18th, the bill, as amended, came before the House. Mr. Stevens moved that the amendments of the Senate be non-concurred in, and that the House ask a Committee of Conference.

Mr. Boutwell opposed the amendment. "If I did not believe," said he, "that this bill, in the form in which it now comes to us from the Senate, was fraught with great and permanent danger to the country, I would not attempt to resist further its passage."

He objected to the bill on the ground that it proposed to reconstruct the rebel State governments at once, through the agency of disloyal men, and that it gave additional power to the President when he had failed to use the vast power which he already possessed in behalf of loyalty and justice.

Mr. Stokes saw in the bill the principle of universal amnesty and universal suffrage. "I would rather have nothing," said he, "if these governments are reconstructed in a way that will place the rebels over Union men."

"Now, what has the Senate done?" Mr. Stevens asked. "Sent back to us an amendment which contains every thing else but protection. It has sent us back a bill which raises the whole question in dispute as to the best mode of reconstructing these States by distant and future pledges which this Congress has no authority to make and no power to execute. What power has this Congress to say to a future Congress, When the Southern States have done certain things, you shall admit them, and receive their members into this House?"

"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.

"I regard this as a flank movement," said Mr. Bromwell, "by which is to be brought about that darling scheme of certain politicians—universal amnesty and universal suffrage. Whether it end in universal suffrage or not, one thing is certain, it is universal amnesty."

"It would be emphatically," said Mr. Donnelly, "a government of rebels. I say a government of rebels, because although the amendment which has reached us from the Senate contains the words, 'Except such as may be disfranchised for participation in the rebellion,' that disfranchisement has to come from the rebels themselves, and surely there is no man upon this floor weak enough to suppose that they will so disfranchise themselves."

Mr. Le Blond opposed both bills. Of the one before the House, he said: "This bill is quite as infamous, quite as absurd, as the bill that the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Stevens,] who is Chairman of the Committee on Reconstruction, contends for and hangs so tenaciously to. It confers all the powers that that bill gives; it confers all the powers that the most radical could claim consistently."

"I shall content myself," said Mr. Eldridge, "with denouncing this measure as most wicked and abominable. It contains all that is vicious, all that is mischievous in any and all of the propositions which have come either from the Committee on Reconstruction or from any gentleman upon the other side of the House."

"If you do not take this bill," said Mr. Delano, "although in all its parts it does not suit you, what are you likely to give the American people? Nothing. I will not return to my constituents admitting that I have failed to try to do something in this great trial of the nation. It is not for rebels that I legislate; it is not for the right of those who have sought to destroy this Government that I extend mercy; but it is for the liberties, rights, and welfare of my country, for all parts of it."

"If this bill be passed," said Mr. Banks, "in my belief there will be no loyal party known and no loyal voice heard in any of these States, from Virginia to Texas."

Many members subsequently presented arguments and opinions for and against the bill, in speeches limited to fifteen minutes in length. This occupied a session protracted until near midnight.

On the following morning, February 19th, a vote was taken, and the House refused to concur in the amendments of the Senate, and asked a Committee of Conference.

The action of the House having been announced in the Senate, that body immediately proceeded to consider a motion made by Mr. Williams, that they insist on their amendment and agree to the conference. The proposition to give the subject into the hands of a Committee of Conference was opposed by many Senators, who thought a question of so much importance should be deliberated upon in a full Senate. If such a committee were appointed, their report could only be adopted or rejected without modification or amendment. They would only have the power which they possess over a nomination by the President—power to reject a nominee without naming another.

"The result arrived at by the Senate in reference to this bill," said Mr. Conness, "was after the most mature consideration that was ever given to any proposition that came before this body, resulting in an unanimity, at least on this side of the chamber, unparalleled in legislative proceedings—a result hailed by the country at large, demanded by the most intelligent and powerful of the American press, alike acceptable to the industrial and commercial interests of the country, which suffer from a continual disorganization of the country affecting its vital industries."

"The fact that it is a very important bill," said Mr. Williams, "only makes it the more necessary, as it seems to me, to adopt the usual practice in such cases"—that of appointing a Committee of Conference.

Mr. Sumner favored the appointment of such a committee. The Senate had made its best endeavor, the House had refused to concur, and now to ask that body to vote upon the question again without a Committee of Conference would kill the bill. In such a case there could be no hope during the session for any just and beneficent measure either of protection or reconstruction.

Mr. Fessenden had taken no part in the debate upon the bill when it was on its passage. A majority of his political friends having determined that the measure which passed the Senate was the best that could be accomplished, he had deemed it his duty not to present his individual objections to the bill. "I would have very much preferred," said he, "the Military Bill, as it was called, pure and simple, without having any thing else upon it, and leaving to other legislation, if it was judged expedient, what else might be done."