"If," replied Mr. Trumbull, "the Senator means to ask me if the Senate has not the physical power to admit any body, elected or not, I admit they have the same right to do it that twelve jurymen would have, against the sworn and uncontradicted testimony of a hundred witnesses, to bring in a verdict directly against the evidence and perjure themselves. I suppose we have the physical power to commit perjury here, when we have sworn to support the Constitution. We might admit a man here from Pennsylvania Avenue, elected by nobody, as a member of this Senate; but we would commit perjury in doing it, and have no right to do it."

Mr. Trumbull made an extended reply, which assumed somewhat the form of a conversation, in which Mr. Dixon and other Senators participated. Mr. Trumbull claimed that it required the concurrent action of both houses of Congress to recognize any government in States where rebellion had overthrown it.

On the 28th of February, the concurrent resolution still pending, Mr. Nye, of Nevada, advocated its passage. He opposed the present admission of any member from the seceding States. "We are told," said he, "by the apologists of these men who are being elected on their merits as rebels, to the exclusion of Union men, that 'we must not expect too much of them.' I fully accede to this idea. A class that during its whole political life has aimed at a monopoly of wealth, a monopoly of labor, and a monopoly of political power; that engaged in the attempt at revolution in order to establish more fully and to perpetuate such monopoly; that, failing in this, has become more bitter by disappointment, should have time; and, sir, I am decidedly in favor of giving them all the time necessary for the most substantial improvement. I would say to these men, 'Go home! Go back and labor as industriously to disabuse the minds of your constituencies as you labored to mislead and impose upon them. Tell them that the Union Government always was and never can be any thing else than a just Government. Tell them that the Constitution has become the acknowledged sovereign, and that it presides in both houses of Congress. Inform them, while you are about it, that the rebel sympathizers and apologists in the North can do them no good; that they are acting as much out of time and propriety now as they did in the time of the war, when their encouragement only prolonged the conflict and added to Southern disaster. You may say to your constituencies that the majority in Congress is very tenacious on the subject of the Union war debt; that it is determined to keep faith with the national creditors; that it is bent on adopting and throwing around it all the safeguards and precautions possible; and that your admission just now, and your alliance with Northern sympathizers, would not be propitious in raising the value of our public securities. While you are conferring with your constituents, you may as well repeat to them the common political axiom that Representatives are elected to represent their constituents, and that it is not believed at the seat of Government that a disloyal constituency would make such a mistake as to send loyal Representatives to Congress. In short, you may as well say to your people that, as Congress represents the loyalty of the nation, South as well as North, and has much important work on hand, some of it requiring a two-thirds majority, it is not deemed wholly prudent to part with that majority out of mere comity to men from whom no assistance could be expected. Finally, by way of closing the suggestive instructions, you may give your constituents to understand that, as you went out of Congress rebel end foremost, you will not probably get into those vacant seats over yonder except that you come back Union end foremost."

Mr. Stewart, of Nevada, held opinions of the pending question different from those maintained by his colleague. He thought "the power to suspend the right of a State to representation might imply a dangerous power, and might imply a right to suspend it for any reason that Congress might see fit. The power to suspend the right of a State to be represented might hereafter be a terrible precedent." "There is no provision in the Constitution," said Mr. Stewart, "conferring such a power upon Congress. No authority of the kind is expressed in that instrument, nor can I find any place where it is implied." In another portion of his speech, which was very long, and occupied part of the session of the succeeding day, Mr. Stewart remarked: "In the darkest time of the rebellion, I deny that the right to represent Tennessee in this hall by those who were loyal ever was for a moment suspended, but their power to obey the law, their power to represent it was prevented by treason. They were overpowered, and they were denied the right of representation, not by Congress, not by the Government. This war was to maintain for them that right which rebellion had sought to take away from them, and had for a time suspended the harmonious relations of the State to the General Government; and it will be too much to admit that this Government has ever been in such a fix that the people thereof were really not entitled to the protection of the Constitution, and because they were denied it this war was brought on, this war was prosecuted."

Mr. Johnson opposed the resolution in a protracted speech in which he reviewed the entire subject of reconstruction. Of the condition and rights of the Southern States he said: "They are as much States as they were when the insurrection was inaugurated, and their relation to their sister States, and their consequent relation to the Government of the United States, is the same relation in which they stood to both when the insurrection was inaugurated. That would seem to follow logically as a necessary result, and if that is a necessary result, does it not also follow that they are entitled to representation in this chamber? Whether they can present persons who can take their seats, because they have individually committed crimes against the United States is another question; but I speak now of the right itself."

Mr. Johnson argued that holding secession sentiments a few years ago was no evidence of present disloyalty, and cited in proof of this proposition a newspaper article purporting to give secession resolutions drawn up by Mr. Wade, and passed at a meeting held at Cleveland in 1859, which was presided over by Joshua E. Giddings.

This called forth an answer from Mr. Wade, who said: "The Senator from Maryland called me in question for having been present at a meeting which he affirmed was held in Cleveland some seven years ago by persons called 'Sons of Liberty,' and he alleged that I there consented to certain resolutions that were passed which favored the doctrine of secession, and that I was chairman of the committee which reported them. Sir, the charge is a total forgery so far as I am concerned. I never was at any such meeting of the Sons of Liberty or any other sons. I never uttered such a sentiment in my life; I am not one of those who have or have had much association with gentlemen holding to secession principles. My associations have all been the other way. During the war that secession made my counsels were against it. I was for war to the death against the principle of secession, while many other gentlemen in my eye were either participants in or apologists for that sentiment. I am perfectly aware that a war is made—and I am willing to meet it anywhere—upon what are called Radicals of the country, and I am one of them. In olden times I was here in the Senate called an Abolitionist, but they have changed the name since. They have all got to be Abolitionists now, and they have changed my name to 'Radical.'

"Mr. President, in the history of mankind, so far as I have read or know it, there never has been a time when parties were so organized on radical principles of justice and right. The party with whom I act appeal to no expediency, to none of your political policies; we dig down to the granite of eternal truth, and there we stand, and they who assail us have to assail the great principles of the Almighty, for our principles are chained to his throne, and are as indestructible as the Almighty himself. I want no warfare with any body; but if you will make war upon such principles as we have adopted, it is the worse for you. You can not prevail.

"I have been in these political warfares for a long time; I claim to be an old soldier in them. I stood in this Senate when there were not five men with me to support me, and then I rose here and told those who were inveighing like demons against the principles that they called abolitionism, that I was an Abolitionist. To-day you are all Abolitionists, not voluntarily, but by compulsion. I have wondered a great deal why men did not learn more about these things than they seem to do. Our principles are assailed now with just the same virulence that they used to be when we were in a small minority. I do not hold that they have triumphed thus far because of any superior capacity on our part. Certainly not. Why is it, then, that we, from the smallest of all beginnings, have conquered the prejudices of the people and conquered the predominant party of this country which had stood completely dominating the whole nation for more than forty years? Why is it that we have conquered you, and now are triumphant here in this Senate and almost by two-thirds in both branches, with the whole nation at our backs? What miracle has wrought this change? None other than the great consoling fact that justice, liberty, and right are destined among the American people to succeed, and the gates of hell can not prevail against them, although they are trying at this particular time very hard to do it." [Laughter.]

On the 2d of March, the last day of the debate, Mr. Cowan first claimed the attention of the Senate in a speech two hours in length. He argued "that for any guilty part taken by the people in the late war, that the sufferings and losses they endured in that war were the natural and sufficient punishment; that after it they remain purged, and ought to be reaedmitted to all their constitutional rights at once. That it is due to the dignity of the United States as a great nation, if she punishes the actual traitors who incited the rebellion, that it be done solemnly and according to the strictest form of law, in open courts, where the prisoners may have counsel and witnesses, so that they may make their defense, if they have any. That according to the Constitution and laws all the States are still in the Union; that secession ordinances could not repeal the one, nor war set aside the other; that they are neither dead by forfeiture or felo de se, but are now in full and perfect existence, with all their municipal machinery in full play. That the proposition of the Committee of Fifteen to amend the Constitution is fundamental and revolutionary, and destructive of the freedom of the States and the liberties of the people; that it is a threat to deprive them of their rights by compelling them either to admit negroes to the right of suffrage or to give up a share of their representation, which is theirs by law and the last amendment to the Constitution. That the resolution now before us from the same committee is also revolutionary and destructive, being an attempt to suspend the Constitution and laws in regard to representation in Congress over eleven States of the Union until Congress shall see fit to restore them. It is a declaration on the part of the members of the present House and Senate, that having the means of keeping these States from being represented here, they are going to do so as long as they please; that no one of these measures can be justified as a punishment for the rebellion; that the Constitution forbids them as bills of pains and penalties, and as ex post facto in their character."

Mr. Garret Davis, in the course of a speech in opposition to the resolution, suggested a summary solution of the present difficulties: "There is," said he, "a provision in the Constitution which requires the President to communicate to the two houses of Congress information as to the state of the Union, and to recommend to them such measures "as he shall deem proper and expedient. What does this necessarily impose upon him? He has to ascertain what men compose the two houses of Congress. It is his right, it is his constitutional function, to ascertain who constitute the two houses of Congress. The members of the Senate who are in favor of the admission of the Southern Senators could get into a conclave with those Southern Senators any day, and they would constitute a majority of the Senate. The President of the United States has the constitutional option—it is his function, it his power, it is his right—and I would advise him to exercise it, to ascertain, where there are two different bodies of men both claiming to be the Senate, which is the true Senate. If the Southern members and those who are for admitting them to their seats constitute a majority of the whole Senate, the President has a right—and, by the Eternal! he ought to exercise that right forthwith, to-morrow, or any day—to recognize the Opposition in this body and the Southern members, the majority of the whole body, as the true Senate. And then what would become of you gentlemen? Oh, if the lion of the Hermitage, and that great statesman, the sage of Ashland, were here in the seat of power, how soon would they settle this question! They would say to, and they would inspire those to whom they spoke, 'You Southern men are kept out of your seats by violence, by revolution, against the Constitution, against right; the Union is dissolved, the Government is brought to an end by keeping the Senators from eleven States out of their seats when the Constitution expressly states that every State shall have two Senators.'

"There is no plainer principle of constitutional law than that the President has the right to ascertain and decide what body of men is the Senate and what the House of Representatives when there are two bodies of men claiming to be each. It is his right to do so, and the people of America will sustain him in the noble and manly and patriotic performance of his duty in determining the identity of the true House. It ought to have been done at the beginning of this session. When a petty clerk took upon himself to read the list of the Representatives of the people of the United States, and to keep the Representatives of eleven States out of their seats, the Constitution guaranteeing to them those seats for the benefit of their constituents and country, that subordinate never ought to have been tolerated for one day in the perpetration of so great an outrage. Whenever Andrew Johnson chooses to exercise his high function, his constitutional right of saying to the Southern Senators, 'Get together with the Democrats and the Conservatives of the Senate, and if you constitute a majority, I will recognize you as the Senate of the United States,' what then will become of you gentlemen? You will quietly come in and form a part of that Senate."

Mr. Doolittle opposed the passage of the resolution. Referring to the plan proposed by Mr. Davis, he said: "If such a thing should happen—which God in his mercy, I hope, will always prevent—that the Senate should be divided, and one portion should go into one room, and another into another, each claiming to be the Senate, I suppose the House of Representatives could direct its clerk to go to one body and not go to the other, and I do not know but the President of the United States would have the power, in case of such a division, to send his private secretary with messages to one body and not send them to the other. Perhaps that might occur; but it is one of those cases that are not to be supposed or to be tolerated."

Mr. Wilson advocated the resolution: "The nation," said he, "is divided into two classes; that the one class imperiously demands the immediate and unconditional admission into these halls of legislation of the rebellious States, rebel end foremost; that the other class seeks their admission into Congress, at an early day, loyal end foremost. He would hear, too, the blended voices of unrepentant rebels and rebel sympathizers and apologists mingling in full chorus, not for the restoration of a broken Union, for the unity and indivisibility of the republic has been assured on bloody fields of victory, but for the restoration to these vacant chairs of the 'natural leaders' of the South."

Referring to Mr. Davis' programme for the President's interference with the Senate, Mr. Wilson said: "Sir, there was a time when a Senator who should have said what we have recently heard on this floor would have sunk into his seat under the withering rebuke of his associates. No Senator or Representative has a right to tell us what the Executive will do. The President acts upon his own responsibility. We are Senators, this is the Senate of the United States, and it becomes us to maintain the rights and the dignity of the Senate of the United States. The people demand that their Senators and Representatives shall enact the needed measures to restore, at the earliest possible day, the complete practical relations of the seceded States to the National Government, and protect the rights and liberties of all the people, without regard to color, race, or descent."

Mr. Fessenden, having the resolution in charge, made a second speech, in which he answered objections which had been urged, and defended the Committee of Fifteen against imputations of a disposition to delay the work of reconstruction.

Mr. McDougal took occasion to say a few words against the resolution. He said: "I would not dare to vote for this proposition, because I have some regard for the great Judge who lives above. The question pending now, as practically useless as it will be as rule, is yet mischievous. It is in the way of teaching bad precedents, false law, unsound loyalty. These things are like the worms that eat into the majestic oaks which are used to build vessels to ride the sea, and decay their strength, so that they fall down and make wrecks of navies."

Mr. Hendricks had moved to amend the resolution by inserting the words "inhabitants of" after the word "States." This amendment was rejected. The Senate then proceeded to take the vote on the concurrent resolution, which was passed—yeas, 29; nays, 18.

Thus the opinion of Congress was established, by a large majority, that the two houses should act conjointly upon the whole question of the representation of States, and that this question was entirely independent, of the Executive.



CHAPTER XVII.

THE RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENT—IN THE HOUSE.

A Constitutional Amendment Proposed and Postponed — Proposition by Mr. Stewart — The Reconstruction Amendment — Death of its Predecessor Lamented — Opposition to the Disfranchisement of Rebels — "The Unrepentent Thirty-three" — Nine-tenths Reduced to One-twelfth — Advice to Congress — The Committee Denounced — Democratic and Republican Policy Compared — Authority without Power — A Variety of Opinions — An Earthquake Predicted — The Joint Resolution Passes the House.

While the joint resolution proposing a modification of the basis of representation was the subject of consideration in the Senate, a constitutional amendment relating to the rights of citizens was made the topic of brief discussion in the House. It had been previously introduced and referred to the Committee of Fifteen. From this committee it was reported back by Mr. Bingham. It was proposed in the following form:

"ARTICLE—. That Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper to secure to the citizens of each State all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States, and to all persons in the several States equal protection in the rights of life, liberty, and property."

This proposition was introduced on the 26th of February, and was debated during the sessions of three successive days.

Many members of the legal profession saw in the final clause a dangerous centralization of power. It was considered objectionable as seeming to authorize the General Government to interfere with local laws on the subject of property, the legal rights of women, and other matters hitherto considered wholly within the domain of State legislation; hence the Republican majority unanimously voted to postpone the amendment until April.

After this postponement, and the failure of the amendment relating to the basis of representation to pass the Senate, the subject of reconstruction was in the hands of the Committee of Fifteen until the 30th of April.

Individuals had, from time to time, introduced propositions on the subject, which were referred to the appropriate committee. The one which attracted most attention and excited greatest interest was a proposition in the Senate, by Mr. Stewart, of Nevada. This was in favor of a joint resolution providing that each of the States lately in rebellion shall be recognized as having resumed its relations with the Government, and its Representatives shall be admitted to Congress whenever it shall have amended its Constitution so as to provide—

"1. There shall be no distinction in civil rights among its citizens by reason of race or color or previous condition of servitude; 2. That all debts incurred in aid of the rebellion shall be repudiated; 3. That all claim for compensation for liberated slaves shall be relinquished; and 4. That the elective franchise be extended to all persons on the same terms, irrespective of race, color, or previous condition, provided that none be disfranchised who were qualified voters in 1860; and that upon these conditions being ratified by a majority of the present voting population of each State, (including all qualified to vote in 1860,) a general amnesty shall be proclaimed as to all who engaged in the rebellion."

This proposition had peculiar significance, since it emanated from a gentleman who, though elected as a Republican, had ever since the veto of the Freedmen's Bureau acted with the Conservatives. Mr. Sumner, "with open arms," welcomed the Senator from Nevada as "a new convert to the necessity of negro suffrage." Mr. Wilson was thankful to the author of this proposition for placing the whole question "on the basis of universal liberty, universal justice, universal suffrage, and universal amnesty." The resolution was referred to the Committee of Fifteen, with whom Mr. Wilson had no doubt it would receive "serious consideration."

On the 30th of April, Mr. Stevens reported from the Committee of Fifteen a joint resolution providing for the passage of the following amendment to the Constitution:

"ARTICLE—.

"SEC. 1. "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life; liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

"SEC. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But whenever in any State the elective franchise shall be denied to any portion of its male citizens not less than twenty-one years of age, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation in such State shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of male citizens shall bear to the whole number of such male citizens not less than twenty-one years of age.

"SEC. 3. Until the 4th day of July, in the year 1870, all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection, giving it aid and comfort, shall be excluded from the right to vote for Representatives in Congress and for electors for President and Vice-President of the United States.

"SEC. 4. Neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation already incurred, or which may hereafter be incurred, in aid of insurrection or of war against the United States, or any claim for compensation for loss of involuntary service or labor.

"SEC. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."

This proposed amendment to the Constitution was accompanied by two bills, one of which provided that when any State lately in insurrection should have ratified the amendment, its Senators and Representatives, if found duly elected and qualified, should be admitted as members of Congress. The other bill declared the high ex-officials of the late Confederacy ineligible to any office under the Government of the United States.

The proposed constitutional amendment was by a vote of the House made the special order for Tuesday, the 8th of May. On that day Mr. Stevens occupied the attention of the House with a brief argument in favor of the amendment. Referring to the death in the Senate of the amendment previously proposed, Mr. Stevens said: "But it is dead, and unless this (less efficient, I admit) shall pass, its death has postponed the protection of the colored race perhaps for ages. I confess my mortification at its defeat. I grieved especially because it almost closed the door of hope for the amelioration of the condition of the freedmen. But men in pursuit of justice must never despair. Let us again try and see whether we can not devise some way to overcome the united forces of self-righteous Republicans and unrighteous Copper-heads. It will not do for those who for thirty years have fought the beasts at Ephesus to be frightened by the fangs of modern catamounts."

Of the present proposition, Mr. Stevens said: "It is not all that the committee desired. It falls far short of my wishes, but it fulfills my hopes. I believe it is all that can be obtained in the present state of public opinion. Not only Congress, but the several States are to be consulted. Upon a careful survey of the whole ground, we did not believe that nineteen of the loyal States could be induced to ratify any proposition more stringent than this."

Referring to the section prohibiting rebels from voting until 1870, Mr. Stevens said: "My only objection to it is that it is too lenient. Here is the mildest of all punishments ever inflicted on traitors. I might not consent to the extreme severity denounced upon them by a provisional governor of Tennessee—I mean the late lamented Andrew Johnson of blessed memory—but I would have increased the severity of this section."

Mr. Blaine called attention to the fact that most of the persons whom the third section of the amendment was designed to disfranchise, had their political rights restored to them by the Amnesty Proclamation, or had been pardoned by the President.

Mr. Finck opposed the proposition in a speech of which the following are extracts: "Stripped of all disguises, this measure is a mere scheme to deny representation to eleven States; to prevent indefinitely a complete restoration of the Union, and perpetuate the power of a sectional and dangerous party.

"Sir, the whole scheme is revolutionary, and a most shallow pretext for an excuse to exclude the vote of eleven States in the next Presidential election. You can not exact conditions in this way from any State in the Union; no more from Georgia than from Massachusetts. They are each equal States in the Union, held together by the same Constitution, neither being the superior of the other in their relation to the Federal Government as States."

Commenting on the first section, designed to insert a recognition of civil rights in the Constitution, Mr. Finck said: "If it is necessary to adopt it in order to confer upon Congress power over the matters contained in it, then the Civil Rights Bill, which the President vetoed, was passed without authority, and is clearly unconstitutional."

To this inference, Mr. Garfield replied: "I am glad to see this first section here, which proposes to hold over every American citizen without regard to color, the protecting shield of law. The gentleman who has just taken his seat undertakes to show that because we propose to vote for this section, we therefore acknowledge that the Civil Rights Bill was unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Bill is now a part of the law of the land. But every gentleman knows it will cease to be a part of the law whenever the sad moment arrives when that gentleman's party comes into power. It is precisely for that reason that we propose to lift that great and good law above the reach of political strife, beyond the reach of the plots and machinations of any party, and fix it in the serene sky, in the eternal firmament of the Constitution, where no storm of passion can shake it, and no cloud can obscure it. For this reason, and not because I believe the Civil Rights Bill unconstitutional, I am glad to see that first section here."

Mr. Garfield opposed the section disfranchising rebels as "the only proposition in this resolution that is not bottomed clearly and plainly upon principle—principle that will stand the test of centuries, and be as true a thousand years hence as it is to-day."

Mr. Thayer, while favoring the proposed amendment in all other particulars, was opposed to the third section. "I think," said he, "that it imperils the whole measure under consideration. What will continue to be the condition of the country if you adopt this feature of the proposed plan? Continual distraction, continued agitation, continued bickerings, continued opposition to the law, and it will be well for the country if a new insurrection shall not spring from its bosom."

Mr. Boyer denounced the proposition as "an ingenious scheme to keep out the Southern States, and to prevent the restoration of the Union until after the next Presidential election."

Mr. Kelley, if he "could have controlled the report of the Committee of Fifteen, would have proposed to give the right of suffrage to every loyal man in the country." He advocated the amendment, however, in all its provisions. He especially defended the third section. "This measure," said he, "does not propose to punish them; on the contrary, it is an act of amnesty, and proposes, after four years, to reinvest them with all their rights, which they do not possess at this time because of their crime."

The passage of the resolution was next advocated by Mr. Schenck. Referring to the third section, he denied the principle advanced by Mr. Garfield that there was any thing inconsistent or wrong in making it an exclusion for a term of years instead of exclusion altogether. "If there be any thing in that argument," said he, "in case of crime, you must either not sentence a man to the penitentiary at all, or else incarcerate him for the term of his natural life. Or, to compare it to another thing, which perhaps better illustrates the principle involved, when a foreigner arrives upon our shores we should not say to him, 'At the end of five years, when you have familiarized yourself with our institutions, and become attached to them, we will allow you to become a citizen, and admit you to all the franchises we enjoy,' but we should require that he be naturalized the moment he touches our soil, or else excluded from the rights of citizenship forever."

Mr. Schenck thought the loyal and true people throughout the land were "full ready to declare that those who have proved traitors, and have raised their parricidal hands against the life of the country, who have attempted to strike down our Government and destroy its institutions, should be the very last to be trusted to take any share in preserving, conducting, and carrying on that Government and maintaining those institutions."

Mr. Smith opposed the resolution in a speech which, if it added nothing to the arguments, contributed, by its good humored personalities and its harmless extravagancies, to the amusement of the auditors.

On the following day, May 9th, the consideration of the subject was resumed, and Mr. Broomall addressed the House in favor of the resolution. He began by counting the votes that would probably be cast against the amendment. "It would meet the opposition," said he, "of the unrepentant thirty-three of this body. It was also to be expected that the six Johnsonian new converts to Democracy would oppose and vote against this measure, commencing with the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Raymond,] who, I believe, has the disease in the most virulent form, thence down to the gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. Smith,] who preceded me on this question, and who has the mildest and most amiable type of the infection. Upon them, too, arguments are useless. There must, then, be thirty-nine votes against the measure, and I want there to be no more."

To the objection urged against the third section of the proposed amendment, that it would disfranchise nine-tenths of all the voters of the South, Mr. Broomall replied: "This is a grand mistake. There were in 1860 one million one hundred and twenty thousand voters in those eleven States. We may take seven hundred and fifty thousand as the number of individuals in the South who rendered aid and comfort to the enemy, not counting the comparatively few though powerful leaders who rendered aid and comfort outside of the army. But, sir, we do not propose to disfranchise even these seven hundred and fifty thousand. Supposing two hundred and fifty thousand of the rebel army were lost, we have five hundred thousand actual voters in the South to be disfranchised by this measure, if they come within the meaning of it. But do they come within the meaning of this provision? Why, sir, it does not embrace the unwilling conscripts; it does not embrace the men who were compelled to serve in the army. It would be fair to say three hundred thousand of these people belonged to the unwilling class, who were forced into the army by rigid conscription laws and the various contrivances of the leading rebels. This will leave two hundred thousand; and I say now it is utterly impossible, in my opinion, that the number of people in the South who can be operated upon by this provision should exceed two hundred thousand, if, indeed, it should reach the one half of that number. Is this nine-tenths of the voters of the South? Why, it is about one in every twelve."

Mr. Shanklin opposed the amendment as intended "to disfranchise the people of the Southern States who have gone into this rebellion, until the party in power could fasten and rivet the chains of oppression for all time to come, and hedge themselves in power, that they may rule and control those people at will."

Mr. Shanklin closed his speech with the following advice to Congress: "Discharge your joint Committee on Reconstruction; abolish your Freedmen's Bureau; repeal your Civil Rights Bill, and admit all the delegates from the seceded States to their seats in Congress, who have been elected according to the laws of the country and possess the constitutional qualification, and all will be well."

Mr. Raymond spoke in favor of the amendment, except the disfranchisement clause. He had opposed the Civil Rights Bill on the ground of want of constitutional power in Congress to pass it. He favored the first section of this amendment, since it gave the previous acts of Congress a constitutional basis.

In answer to Mr. Broomall's "ingenious argument," Mr. Raymond said: "It seems to me idle to enter into such calculations, which depend on a series of estimates, each one of which can not be any thing more than a wild and random guess. I take it that we all know perfectly well that the great masses of the Southern people 'voluntarily adhered to the insurrection;' not at the outset not as being originally in favor of it, but during its progress, sooner or later, they voluntarily gave in their adhesion to it, and gave it aid and comfort. They did not all join the army. They did not go into the field, but they did, at different times, from various motives and in various ways, give it aid and comfort. That would exclude the great body of the people of those States under this amendment from exercising the right of suffrage."

Mr. Raymond asserted that all that was offered to the rebel legislatures of the Southern States, in return for the concessions required of them, was "the right to be represented on this floor, provided they will also consent not to vote for the men who are to represent them! The very price by which we seek to induce their assent to these amendments we snatch away from their hands the moment that assent is secured. Is there any man here who can so far delude himself as to suppose for a moment that the people of the Southern States will accede to any such scheme as this? There is not one chance in ten thousand of their doing it."

Mr. McKee advocated the amendment. He thought that opposition to its third section was a rebuke to those States which had passed laws disfranchising rebels. To obviate all objections to this section, however, he proposed a substitute forever excluding "all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection" from holding "any office under the Government of the United States."

Mr. Eldridge did not intend "to make an argument on the merits of the joint resolution." His remarks were mostly in derogation of the committee by whom the measure was recommended. "The committee," said he, "report no facts whatever, and give us no conclusion. They simply report amendments to the Constitution. Was that the purpose for which the committee was organized? Was it to change the fundamental law of the land under which we of the loyal States assembled here? Was that the duty with which the committee was charged? Were they to inquire and report an entire change of the fundamental law of the nation which would destroy the States and create an empire? I say they were charged with no such duty. The resolution can not fairly be construed as giving to the committee any such power, any such jurisdiction. The committee stands resisting the restoration of this Union, and I hope that no further business will be referred to it. It has rendered itself unworthy of the high duty with which it was charged."

Mr. Eldridge asserted: "The whole scheme is in the interest of party alone, to preserve and perpetuate the party idea of this Republican disunion party."

The debate thus entering "the domain of partisan controversy," Mr. Boutwell, in a speech which followed, undertook to show how the proposition before the House "traverses the policy of the Democratic party with reference to the reconstruction of the Government." Mr. Boutwell described the policy of the Democratic party, "which," said he, "they laid down as early as 1856 in the platform made at Cincinnati, wherein they declared substantially that it was the right of a Territory to be admitted into this Union with such institutions as it chose to establish, not even by implication admitting that the representatives of the existing Government had any right to canvass those institutions, or to consider the right of the Territory to be recognized as a State.

"Now, sir, from that doctrine, which probably had its origin in the resolutions of 1798, the whole of their policy to this day has legitimately followed. First, we saw its results in the doctrine of Mr. Buchanan, announced in 1860, that, while the Constitution did not provide for or authorize the secession of a State from this Union, there was no power in the existing Government to compel a State to remain in the Union against its own judgment. Following that doctrine, they come legitimately to the conclusion of to-day, in which they are supported, as I understand, by the President of the United States upon the one side, and, as I know, by the testimony of Alexander H. Stephens, late Vice-President of the so-called Confederacy, upon the other. That doctrine, is that these eleven States have to-day, each for itself, an existing and unquestionable right of representation in the Government of this country, and that it is a continuous right which has not been interrupted by any of the events of the war."

On the other hand, Mr. Boutwell thus defined the position of "the Union party," which, he said, "stands unitedly upon two propositions. The first is equality of representation, about which there is no difference of opinion. The second is, that there shall be a loyal people in each applicant State before any Representative from that State is admitted in Congress. And there is a third: a vast majority of the Republican party, soon to be the controlling and entire force of that party, demand suffrage for our friends, for those who have stood by us in our days of tribulation. And for myself, with the right, of course, to change my opinion, I believe in the Constitutional power of the Government to-day to extend the elective franchise to every loyal male citizen of the republic."

Mr. Spalding favored the amendment, including the third section, to which exception had been taken by some of his friends. He asked, "Is it exceptionable? Is it objectionable? If it be so, it is, in my judgment, for the reason that the duration of the period of incapacity is not extended more widely. I take my stand here, that it is necessary to ingraft into that enduring instrument called the Constitution of the United States something which shall admonish this rebellious people, and all who shall come after them, that treason against the Government is odious; that it carries with it some penalty, some disqualification; and the only one which we seek to attach by this amendment is a disqualification in voting—not for their State and county and town officers, but for members of Congress, who are to be the law-makers, and for the Executive of the United States, this disqualification to operate for the short period of four years."

Mr. Miller advocated all the sections of the proposed amendment except the third. Of this he said: "Though it seems just on its face, I doubt the propriety of embodying it with the other amendments, as it may retard, if not endanger, the ratification of the amendment in regard to representation, and we can not afford to endanger in any manner a matter of such vital importance to the country."

Mr. Eliot had voted against the former amendment, which was passed by the House and rejected by the Senate. The present proposed amendment, while it was not all he could ask, was not open to the objections which then controlled his vote. In advocating the third section, he said: "It is clear, upon adjudged law, that the States lately in rebellion, and the inhabitants of those States, by force of the civil war, and of the Union triumph in that war, so far have lost their rights to take part in the Government of the Union that some action on the part of Congress is required to restore those rights. Pardon and amnesty given by the President can not restore them. Those men can not vote for President or for Representatives in Congress until, in some way, Congress has so acted as to restore their power. The question, then, is very simple: Shall national power be at once conferred on those who have striven, by all means open to them, to destroy the nation's life? Shall our enemies and the enemies of the Government, as soon as they have been defeated in war, help to direct and to control the public policy of the Government—and that, too, while those men, hostile themselves, keep from all exercise of political power the only true and loyal friends whom we have had, during these four years of war, within these Southern States?"

It had been argued against the third section that it could not be enforced, that it would be inoperative. To this objection Mr. Shellabarger replied: "It will not require standing armies. You can have registry laws. Upon this registry list you may place the names of men who are to be disqualified, and you may also have the names of all who are qualified to vote under the law. There they will stand, there they will be, to be referred to by your Government in the execution of its laws. And when it comes to this House or to the Senate to determine whether a man is duly elected, you can resort to the ordinary process applicable to a trial in a contested election case in either body, as to whether he has been elected by the men who were entitled to elect him."

Thursday, May 10th, was the last day of this discussion in the House. Mr. Randall first took the floor and spoke in opposition to the joint resolution. To the friends of the measure he said: "It is intended to secure what you most wish: an entire disagreement to the whole scheme by the eleven Southern States, and a continued omission of representation on this floor."

Mr. Strouse, in opposing the amendment, occupied most of his time in reading an editorial from the New York Times, which he characterized as "sound, patriotic, statesmanlike, and just."

Mr. Strouse expressed, as his own opinion, "that the States are, and never ceased to be, in law and in fact, constituent parts of our Union. If I am correct in this opinion, what necessity exists for these amendments of the Constitution? Let the States be represented in the Senate and House by men who can conscientiously qualify as members; and after that, when we have a full Congress, with the whole country represented, let any amendment that may be required be proposed, and let those most interested have an opportunity to participate in the debates and deliberations of matters of so much moment to every citizen."

Mr. Banks regarded the pending amendment as the most important question which could be presented to the House or to the country. "It is my belief," said he, "that reoerganization of governments in the insurgent States can be secured only by measures which will work a change in the basis of political society. Any thing that leaves the basis of political society in the Southern States untouched, leaves the enemy in condition to renew the war at his pleasure, and gives him absolute power to destroy the Government whenever he chooses.

"There are two methods by which the change I propose can be made: one by extending the elective franchise to the negro, the other by restrictions upon the political power of those heretofore invested with the elective franchise—a part of whom are loyal and a part of whom are disloyal, a part of whom are friends and a part of whom are enemies.

"I have no doubt that the Government of the United States has authority to extend the elective franchise to the colored population of the insurgent States, but I do not think it has the power. The distinction I make between authority and power is this: We have, in the nature of our Government, the right to do it; but the public opinion of the country is such at this precise moment as to make it impossible we should do it. The situation of opinion in these States compels us to look to other means to protect the Government against the enemy.

"I approve of the proposition which disfranchises the enemies of the country. I think it right in principle. I think it necessary at this time. If I had any opinion to express, I should say to the gentlemen of the House that it is impossible to organize a government in the insurgent States, and have the enemies of the country in possession of political power, in whole or in part, in local governments or in representation here.

"An enemy to the Government, a man who avows himself an enemy of its policy and measures, who has made war against the Government, would not seem to have any absolute right to share political power equally with other men who have never been otherwise than friends of the Government.

"A pardon does not confer or restore political power. A general act of amnesty differs from an individual pardon only in the fact that it applies to a class of offenders who can not be individually described. It secures immunity from punishment or prosecution by obliterating all remembrance of the offense; but it confers or restores no one to political power.

"There is no justification for the opinion so strongly expressed, that this measure will fail because the rebel States will not consent to the disfranchisement of any portion of their own people. The proposition is for the loyal States to determine upon what terms they will restore to the Union the insurgent States. It is not necessary that they should participate in our deliberations upon this subject, and wholly without reason that they should have the power to defeat it. It is a matter of congratulation that they have not this power. We have the requisite number of States without them.

"I do not believe that there is a State in this Union where at least a clear majority of the people were not from the beginning opposed to the war; and could you remove from the control of public opinion one or two thousand in each of these States, so as to let up from the foundations of political society the mass of common people, you would have a population in all these States as loyal and true to the Government as the people of any portion of the East or West.

"The people knew that it was the rich man's war and the poor man's fight. The legislation of the insurgent States exempted, to a great degree, the rich men and their sons, on account of the possession of property, while it forced, at the point of the bayonet, and oftentimes at the cost of life, the masses of the people to maintain their cause. There is nothing in the whole war more atrocious than the cruel measures taken by the rebel leaders to force the people who had no interest in it, and were averse to sharing its dishonor and peril."

Mr. Banks remarked of the amendment: "It will produce the exact result which we desire: the immediate restoration of the governments of the States to the Union, the recognition of the loyal people, and the disfranchisement of the implacable and unchangeable public enemies of the Union, and the creation of State governments upon the sound and enduring basis of common interest and common affection."

Mr. Eckley advocated the joint resolution, citing a number of historical and political precedents in favor of its provisions. Of the disfranchising clause, he said: "The only objection I have to the proposition is, that it does not go far enough. I would disfranchise them forever. They have no right, founded in justice, to participate in the administration of the Government or exercise political power. If they receive protection in their persons and property, are permitted to share in the nation's bounties, and live in security under the broad aegis of the nation's flag, it is far more than the nation owes them."

Mr. Longyear favored the amendment, but disliked the third section, of which he said: "Let us then reject this dead weight, and not load down good provisions, absolutely essential provisions, by this, which, however good in and of itself, can not be enforced. I regard this provision, if adopted, both worthless and harmless, and, therefore, I shall vote for the proposed amendment as a whole, whether this be rejected or retained."

Mr. Beaman held a similar opinion. He said: "We very well know that such a provision would be entirely inoperative, because electors for President and Vice-President can be appointed by the Legislatures, according to a practice that has always obtained in South Carolina. The provision does not extend to the election of Senators, and, consequently, it can operate only to affect the election of members of this House, and that only for a period of four years."

Mr. Rogers denounced the proposed amendment in emphatic terms. He said: "The first section of this programme of disunion is the most dangerous to liberty. It saps the foundation of the Government; it destroys the elementary principles of the States; it consolidates every thing into one imperial despotism; it annihilates all the rights which lie at the foundation of the union of the States, and which have characterized this Government and made it prosperous and great during the long period of its existence. It will result in a revolution worse than that through which we have just passed; it will rock the earth like the throes of an earthquake, until its tragedy will summon the inhabitants of the world to witness its dreadful shock.

"In the third section, you undertake," said Mr. Rogers, "to enunciate a doctrine that will, if carried out, disfranchise seven or eight million people, and that will put them in a worse condition than the serfs of Russia or the downtrodden people of Poland and Hungary, until the year 1870."

Mr. Farnsworth advocated the amendment, but did not regard the third section as of any practical value. It did not provide punishment adequate to the guilt of the various offenders. "There is a large class of men," said he, "both in the North and South, equally—yea, and more—guilty than thousands of the misguided men who will be disfranchised by this provision, who will not be affected by it. I allude to those politicians and others at the South, who, keeping themselves out of danger, set on the ignorant and brave to fight for what they were told by these rascals were 'their rights;' and to other politicians, editors, 'copper-heads' in the North, some of whom were and are members of Congress, who encouraged them and discouraged our soldiers."

Mr. Bingham spoke in favor of the amendment. He preferred that the disfranchising clause should be embodied in an act of Congress. "I trust," said he, "that this amendment, with or without the third section, will pass this House, that the day may soon come when Tennessee—loyal Tennessee—loyal in the very heart of the rebellion, her mountains and plains blasted by the ravages of war and stained with the blood of her faithful children fallen in the great struggle for the maintenance of the Union, having already conformed her constitution and laws to every provision of this amendment, will at once, upon its submission by Congress, irrevocably ratify it, and be, without further delay, represented in Congress by her loyal Representatives and Senators.

"Let that great example be set by Tennessee, and it will be worth a hundred thousand votes to the loyal people in the free North. Let this be done, and it will be hailed as the harbinger of that day for which all good men pray, when the fallen pillars of the republic shall be restored without violence or the noise of words or the sound of the hammer, each to its original place in the sacred temple of our national liberties, thereby giving assurance to all the world that, for the defense of the republic, it was not in vain that a million and a half of men, the very elect of the earth, rushed to arms; that the republic still lives, and will live for evermore, the sanctuary of an inviolable justice, the refuge of liberty, and the imperishable monument of the nation's dead, from the humblest soldier who perished on the march, or went down amid the thunder and tempest of the dread conflict, up through all the shining roll of heroes and patriots and martyrs to the incorruptible and immortal Commander-in-chief, who fell by an assassin's hand in the capital, and thus died that his country might live."

The hour having arrived when, by understanding of the House, the discussion should close, Mr. Stevens closed the debate with a short speech. "I am glad," said he, "to see great unanimity among the Union friends in this House on all the provisions of this joint resolution except the third one. I am not very much gratified to see any division among our friends on that which I consider the vital proposition of them all. Without that, it amounts to nothing. I do not care the snap of my finger whether it be passed or not if that be stricken out. I should be sorry to find that that provision was stricken out, because, before any portion of this can be put into operation, there will be, if not a Herod, a worse than Herod elsewhere to obstruct our actions. That side of the house will be filled with yelling secessionists and hissing copper-heads. Give us the third section or give us nothing. Do not balk us with the pretense of an amendment which throws the Union into the hands of the enemy before it becomes consolidated. Do not, I pray you, admit those who have slaughtered half a million of our countrymen until their clothes are dried, and until they are reclad. I do not wish to sit side by side with men whose garments smell of the blood of my kindred. Gentlemen seem to forget the scenes that were enacted here years ago. Many of you were not here. But my friend from Ohio [Mr. Garfield] ought to have kept up his reading enough to have been familiar with the history of those days, when the men that you propose to admit occupied the other side of the House; when the mighty Toombs, with his shaggy locks, headed a gang who, with shouts of defiance on this floor, rendered this a hell of legislation.

"Ah, sir, it was but six years ago when they were here, just before they went out to join the armies of Catiline, just before they left this hall. Those of you who were here then will remember the scene in which every Southern member, encouraged by their allies, came forth in one yelling body because a speech for freedom was being made here; when weapons were drawn, and Barksdale's bowie-knife gleamed before our eyes. Would you have these men back again so soon to reenact those scenes? Wait until I am gone, I pray you. I want not to go through, it again. It will be but a short time for my colleague to wait. I hope he will not put us to that test."

At the close of his remarks, Mr. Stevens moved the previous question.

Mr. Garfield hoped that it would be voted down, that he might have an opportunity to offer a substitute for the third section, forever excluding the persons therein specified "from holding any office of trust or profit under the Government of the United States."

Nevertheless, the previous question was sustained, and a vote was taken on the joint resolution proposing the constitutional amendment as it came from the committee. The following are the yeas and nays:

YEAS—Messrs. Alley, Allison, Ames, Anderson, Delos R. Ashley, James M. Ashley, Baker, Baldwin, Banks, Barker, Baxter, Beaman, Benjamin, Bidwell, Bingham, Blaine, Blow, Boutwell, Bromwell, Broomall, Buckland, Bundy, Reader W. Clarke, Sidney Clarke, Cobb, Conkling, Cook, Cullom, Darling, Davis, Dawes, Defrees, Delano, Deming, Dixon, Dodge, Donnelly, Driggs, Dumont, Eckley, Eggleston, Eliot, Farnsworth, Perry, Garfield, Grinnell, Griswold, Abner C. Harding, Hart, Hayes, Henderson, Higby, Holmes, Hooper, Hotchkiss, Asahel W. Hubbard, Chester D. Hubbard, Demas Hubbard, James R. Hubbell, Hulburd, James Humphrey, Ingersoll, Jenckes, Julian, Kasson, Kelley, Kelso, Ketcham, Kuykendall, Laflin, George V. Lawrence, William Lawrence, Loan, Longyear, Lynch, Marston, McClurg, McIndoe, McKee, McRuer, Mercur, Miller, Moorhead, Morrill, Morris, Moulton, Myers, Newell, O'Neill, Orth, Paine, Patterson, Perham, Pike, Plants, Price, William H. Randall, Raymond, Alexander H. Rice, John H. Rice, Rollins, Sawyer, Schenck, Scofield, Shellabarger, Spalding, Stevens, Stilwell, Thayer, Francis Thomas, John L. Thomas, Trowbridge, Upson, Van Aernam, Burt Van Horn, Robert T. Van Horn, Ward, Warner, Elihu B. Washburne, Henry D. Washburn, William B. Washburn, Welker, Williams, James F. Wilson, Stephen F. Wilson, Windom, Woodbridge, and the Speaker—128.

NAYS—Messrs. Ancona, Bergen, Boyer, Chanler, Coffroth, Dawson, Eldridge, Finck, Glossbrenner, Goodyear, Grider, Aaron Harding, Harris, Kerr, Latham, Le Blond, Marshall, McCullough, Niblack, Phelps, Radford, Samuel J. Randall, Ritter, Rogers, Ross, Rosseau, Shanklin, Sitgreaves, Smith, Strouse, Taber, Taylor, Thornton, Trimble, Whaley, Winfield, and Wright—37.

Applause on the floor and in the galleries greeted the announcement that two-thirds of the House having voted in the affirmative the joint resolution was passed.

The heavy majority by which this measure passed the House indicated an effect of the President's steady opposition, the opposite of what was anticipated. The amendment secured two votes which were cast against the Civil Rights Bill, while it lost no vote which that measure received.

It is remarkable that the joint resolution should have been carried with such unanimity when so many Republicans had expressed dissatisfaction with the third section. This is accounted for, however, by the pressure of the previous question, in which fifteen Democrats joined forces with the radical Republicans to force the undivided issue upon the House. A large minority of the Republican members were thus prevented from voting against the clause disfranchising the late rebels until 1870.

In the Senate, as will be seen, the amendment assumed a shape more in accordance with their wishes.



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENT—IN THE SENATE.

Difference between Discussions in the House and in the Senate — Mr. Sumner proposes to postpone — Mr. Howard takes Charge of the Amendment — Substitutes proposed — The Republicans in Council — The Disfranchising Clause stricken out — Humorous Account by Mr. Hendricks — The Pain and Penalties of not holding Office — A Senator's Piety appealed to — Howe vs. Doolittle — Marketable Principles — Praise of the President — Mr. Mcdougall's Charity — Vote of the Senate — Concurrence in the House.

The joint resolution providing for amendments to the Constitution in relation to the rights of citizens, the basis of representation, the disfranchisement of rebels, and the rejection of the rebel debt, having passed the House of Representatives on the 10th of May, awaited only similar action of the Senate to prepare it to go before the several State Legislatures for final consideration. A fortnight had elapsed before it was taken up by the Senate. That body was much behind the House of Representatives in the business of the session. Notwithstanding the great size of the latter, it was accustomed to dispatch business with much greater rapidity than the Senate. The hour rule, limiting the length of speeches, and the previous question putting a boundary upon debate, being part of the machinery of the House, caused legislation to go on to final completion, which would otherwise have been swallowed up and lost in interminable talk.

The Senate, consisting of a smaller number, did not realize the need of such restrictions. Senators sometimes indulged themselves in speeches of such length as, if permitted in the House, would have proved an insurmountable obstacle to legislation.



The contrast between the discussions in the two houses of Congress was never more marked than in connection with the amendment relating to reconstruction. In this case the members of the House by special rule limited themselves to half an hour in the delivery of their speeches, which were consequently marked by great pertinency and condensation. In the Senate the speeches were in some instances limited only by the physical ability of the speakers to proceed. In one instance—the case of Garrett Davis—a speech was prolonged four hours, occupying all that part of the day devoted to the discussion. The limits of a volume would be inadequate for giving more than a mere outline of a discussion conducted upon such principles, and protracted through a period of more than two weeks.

The joint resolution was taken up by the Senate on the 23d of May. Mr. Sumner preferred that the consideration of the question should be deferred until the first of July. "We were able," said he, "to have a better proposition at the end of April than we had at the end of March, and I believe we shall be able to accept a better proposition just as the weeks proceed. It is one of the greatest questions that has ever been presented in the history of our country or of any country. It should be approached carefully and solemnly, and with the assurance we have before us all the testimony, all the facts, every thing that by any possibility can shed any light upon it."

The Senate proceeded, however, to the consideration of the joint resolution. Owing to the ill-health of Mr. Fessenden, who, as Chairman of the joint Committee on Reconstruction, would probably have taken charge of the measure, Mr. Howard opened the discussion and conducted the resolution in its passage through the Senate. He addressed the Senate in favor of all the sections of the proposed amendment except the third. "It is due to myself," said he, "to say that I did not favor this section of the amendment in the committee. I do not believe, if adopted, it will be of any practical benefit to the country."

Mr. Clark offered a substitute for the third section—the disfranchising clause—the following amendment, which, with slight modifications, was ultimately adopted:

"That no person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or permitted to hold any office under the Government of the United States, who, having previously taken an oath to support the Constitution thereof, shall have voluntarily engaged in any insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or given aid or comfort thereto."

Mr. Wade offered a substitute for the whole bill, providing that no State shall abridge the rights of any person born within the United States, and that no class of persons, as to whose right to suffrage discrimination shall be made by any State except on the ground of intelligence, property, or rebellion, shall be included in the basis of representation. "I do not suppose," said Mr. Wade, "that if I had been on the committee I could have drawn up a proposition so good as this is that they have brought forward; and yet it seems to me, having the benefit of what they have done, that looking it over, reflecting upon it, seeing all its weak points, if it have any, I could, without having the ability of that committee, suggest amendments that would be beneficial."

Referring to the third section of the joint resolution, Mr. Wade remarked: "I am for excluding those who took any leading part in the rebellion from exercising any political power here or elsewhere now and forever; but as that clause does not seem to effect that purpose, and will probably effect nothing at all, I do not think it is of any consequence that it should have a place in the measure."

On the 24th of May, Mr. Stewart spoke three hours on the constitutional amendment. He advocated the extension to the States lately engaged in rebellion of all civil and political rights on condition of their extending impartial suffrage to all their people. He announced his policy as that of "protection for the Union and the friends of the Union, and mercy to a fallen foe. Mercy pleaded generous amnesty; justice demanded impartial suffrage. I proposed pardon for the rebels and the ballot for the blacks." Of the Committee on Reconstruction, Mr. Stewart said: "I realize the difficulties which they have been called upon to encounter. They have acted a noble part in their efforts to harmonize conflicting opinions. I rejoice in the manner in which the report is presented, and the liberal spirit manifested by the committee toward those who are anxious to aid in the perfection of their plan."

Mr. Johnson moved to strike out the third section, without offering a substitute.

Mr. Sherman offered a substitute for the second and third sections, apportioning representation according to the number of male citizens qualified to vote by State laws, and apportioning direct taxes according to the value of real and personal property.

The constitutional amendment was not again brought up for consideration in the Senate until Tuesday, May 29th. The several days during which the discussion was suspended in the Senate were not fruitless in their effect upon the pending measure. The amendment was carefully considered by the majority in special meetings, when such amendations and improvements were agreed upon as would harmonize the action of the Republicans in the Senate.

The first action of the Senate, when the subject was resumed, was to vote upon Mr. Johnson's motion to strike out the third section, which was passed unanimously—yeas, 43; nays, 0.

Mr. Howard, acting for the committee, then offered a series of amendments to the joint resolution under consideration. The first of these provided for the insertion as a part of section one, the following clause:

"All persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside."

Another modification moved by Mr. Howard was the insertion, in place of the third section already stricken out, a clause disabling certain classes of rebels from holding federal offices. This amendment was substantially the same as that previously proposed by Mr. Clark.

It was proposed to amend section four, which, as passed by the House, simply repudiated the rebel debt, by inserting the following clause:

"The obligations of the United States incurred in suppressing insurrection, or in defense of the Union, or for payment of bounties or pensions incident thereto, shall remain inviolate."

Such were the amendments to the pending measure which the majority saw proper to propose.

At a subsequent period of the debate, Mr. Hendricks, in a speech against the joint resolution, gave his view of the manner in which these amendments were devised. Being spoken, in good humor, by one whom a fellow-Senator once declared to be "the best-natured man in the Senate," and having, withal, a certain appropriateness to this point, his remarks are here presented:

"For three days the Senate-chamber was silent, but the discussions were transferred to another room of the Capitol, with closed doors and darkened windows, where party leaders might safely contend for a political and party policy. When Senators returned to their seats, I was curious to observe who had won and who lost in the party lottery. The dark brow of the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Clark] was lighted with a gleam of pleasure. His proposed substitute for the third section was the marked feature of the measure. But upon the lofty brow of the Senator from Nevada [Mr. Stewart] there rested a cloud of disappointment and grief. His bantling, which he had named universal amnesty and universal suffrage, which he had so often dressed and undressed in the presence of the Senate, the darling offspring of his brain, was dead; it had died in the caucus; and it was left to the sad Senator only to hope that it might not be his last. Upon the serene countenance of the Senator from Maine, the Chairman of the Fifteen, there rested the composure of the highest satisfaction; a plausible political platform had been devised, and there was yet hope for his party."

On the 30th of May, the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, proceeded in the consideration of the constitutional amendment. The several clauses were taken up separately and in order.

Mr. Doolittle was desirous of amending the first section, relating to the rights of citizens, by inserting a clause excepting from its operation "Indians not taxed." His proposition was rejected.

"The Committee of Fifteen," said Mr. Doolittle, referring to the Civil Rights Bill, "fearing that this declaration by Congress was without validity unless a constitutional amendment should be brought forward to enforce it, have thought proper to report this amendment."

"I want to say to the honorable Senator," Mr. Fessenden replied, "that he is drawing entirely upon his imagination. There is not one word of correctness in all that he is saying; not a particle; not a scintilla; not the beginning of truth."

The first and second sections of the amendment were accepted in Committee of the Whole, with little further attempt at alteration.

The third section, cutting off late Confederate officials from eligibility to Federal offices, provoked repeated attempts to modify and emasculate it. Among them was a motion by Mr. Saulsbury to amend the final clause by adding that the President, by the exercise of the pardoning power, may remove the disability.

It augured the final success of the entire amendment in the Senate, that the numerous propositions to amend, made by those unfavorable to the measure, were voted down by majorities of more than three-fourths.

Mr. Doolittle, speaking in opposition to the third section, said that it was putting a new punishment upon all persons embraced within its provisions. "If," said he, "by a constitutional amendment, you impose a new punishment upon offenders who are guilty of crime already, you wipe out the old punishment as to them. Now, I do not propose to wipe out the penalties that these men have incurred by their treason against the Government. I would punish a sufficient number of them to make treason odious."

"How many would you like to hang?" asked Mr. Nye.

"You stated the other day that five or six would be enough to hang," replied Mr. Doolittle.

"Do you acquiesce in that?" asked Mr. Nye.

"I think I ought to be satisfied," replied Mr. Doolittle, "if you are satisfied with five or six.

"The insertion of this section," said Mr. Doolittle, continuing his remarks, "tends to prevent the adoption of the amendment by a sufficient number of States to ratify it. What States to be affected by this amendment will ratify it?"

"Four will accept that part of it," said Mr. James H. Lane.

"What four?" asked Mr. Doolittle.

"Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana," replied Mr. Lane. "I saw some gentlemen on Monday from Tennessee, who told me that this particular clause would be the most popular thing that could be tendered. And the very men that you want to hang ought to accept it joyfully in lieu of their hanging." [Laughter.]

"I do not know who those particular gentlemen were," said Mr. Doolittle. "Were they the gentlemen that deserved hanging or not?"

"They were Conservatives from Tennessee," replied Mr. Lane.

"I deem this section as the adoption of a new punishment as to the persons who are embraced within its provisions," said Mr. Doolittle.

"They seem to have peculiar notions in Wisconsin in regard to officers," said Mr. Trumbull; "and the Senator who has just taken his seat regards it as a punishment that a man can not hold an office. Why, sir, how many suffering people there must be in this land! He says this is a bill of pains and penalties because certain persons can not hold office; and he even seems to think it would be preferable, in some instances, to be hanged. He wants to know of the Senator from Ohio if such persons are to be excepted. This clause, I suppose, will not embrace those who are to be hanged. When hung, they will cease to suffer the pains and penalties of being kept out of office.

"Who ever heard of such a proposition as that laid down by the Senator from Wisconsin, that a bill excluding men from office is a bill of pains, and penalties, and punishment? The Constitution of the United States declares that no one but a native born citizen of the United States shall be President of the United States. Does, then, every person living in this land who does not happen to have been born within its jurisdiction undergo pains, and penalties, and punishment all his life because by the Constitution he is ineligible to the Presidency? This is the Senator's position."

Mr. Willey spoke in favor of the pending clause of the joint resolution. "I hope," said he, "that we shall hear no more outcry about the injustice, the inhumanity, and the want of Christian spirit in thus incorporating into our Constitution precautionary measures that will forever prohibit these unfaithful men from again having any part in the Government."

"The honorable Senator," remarked Mr. Davis in reply, "is a professor of the Christian religion, a follower of the lowly and humble Redeemer; but it seems to me that he forgot all the spirit of his Christian charity and faith in the tenor of the remarks which he made."

"This cry for blood and vengeance," exclaimed Mr. Saulsbury, "can not last forever. The eternal God who sits above, whose essence is love, and whose chief attribute is mercy, says to all his creatures, whether in the open daylight or in the silent hours of the night, 'Be charitable; be merciful.'"

Mr. Doolittle proposed two amendments to section three: the first to limit its application to those who "voluntarily engaged in rebellion," and the second to except those "who have duly received amnesty and pardon."

These propositions were both rejected by large majorities, only ten Senators voting for them. The third section, as proposed by Mr. Howard, was then adopted by a vote of thirty against ten.

The death of General Scott having been the occasion of an adjournment of Congress, the consideration of the constitutional amendment was not resumed until the 4th of June. Mr. Hendricks moved to amend by including in the basis of representation in the Southern States three-fifths of the freedmen. Mr. Van Winkle offered an amendment providing that no person not excluded from office by the terms of the third section shall be liable to any disability or penalty for treason after a term of years. Both of these propositions were rejected by the Senate.

On the 5th of June, Mr. Poland, Mr. Stewart, and Mr. Howe addressed the Senate in favor of the constitutional amendment. Mr. Poland did not expect to be able to say any thing after six months' discussion of this subject. He took more hopeful views of the President's tractability than many others. "Although these propositions," said he, "may not, in all respects, correspond with the views of the President, I believe he will feel it to be his patriotic duty to acquiesce in the plan proposed, and give his powerful influence and support to procure their adoption."

"While it is not the plan that I would have adopted," said Mr. Stewart, "still it is the best that I can get, and contains many excellent provisions."

"I shall vote for the Constitutional amendment," said Mr. Howe, "regretfully, but not reluctantly. I shall vote for it regretfully, because it does not meet the emergency as I hoped the emergency would be met; but I shall not vote for it reluctantly, because it seems to me just now to be the only way in which the emergency can be met at all."

An issue of some personal interest arose between Mr. Howe and his colleague, Mr. Doolittle, which led them somewhat aside from the regular channel of discussion.

"He has been a most fortunate politician," said Mr. Howe, "always to happen to have just those convictions which bore the highest price in the market."

"That I ever intended in the slightest degree," replied Mr. Doolittle, "to swerve in my political action for the sake of offices or the price of offices in the market, is a statement wholly without foundation."

Mr. Howe had said in substance that in 1848 Mr. Doolittle was acting with the Free Democratic party in New York, which was stronger than the Democratic party in that State. In 1852, when he left the Free Democratic party, and acted with the Democratic party in Wisconsin, the Democratic party was in the majority in that State. He did not leave the Democratic party and join the Republican party in 1854, but only in 1856, and then Wisconsin was no longer a Democratic State.

Mr. Doolittle, after having given a detailed account of his previous political career, remarked: "During the last six months, in the State of Wisconsin, no man has struggled harder than I have struggled to save the Union party, to save it to its platform, to save it to its principles, to save it to its supremacy. For six months, from one end of Wisconsin to the other—ay, from Boston to St. Paul—by every one of a certain class of newspapers I have been denounced as a traitor to the Union party because I saved it from defeat. Sir, it is not the first time in the history of the world that men have turned in to crucify their savior."

On the same day, June 6th, Messrs. Hendricks, Sherman, Cowan, and others having participated in the discussion, the Senate voted on another amendment offered by Mr. Doolittle, apportioning Representatives, after the census of 1870, according to the number of legal voters in each State by the laws thereof. This proposition was rejected—yeas, 7; nays, 31.

On the 7th of June, Mr. Garrett Davis occupied the entire time devoted to the constitutional amendment in opposing that measure, denouncing Congress, and praising the President. "There is a very great state of backwardness," said he, "in both houses of Congress in relation to the transaction of the legitimate, proper, and useful portion of the public business; but as to the business that is of an illegitimate and mischievous character, and that is calculated to produce results deleterious to the present and the future of the whole country, there has been a good deal, much too much, of progress made."

Of President Johnson Mr. Davis said: "He seems to be the man for the occasion; and his ability, resources, courage, and patriotism have developed to meet its great demands. If this ark which holds the rights and liberties of the American people is to be rescued and saved, he will be one of the chief instruments in the great work, and his glory and fame will be deathless."

On the 8th of June, the last day of the discussion, the constitutional amendment was opposed by Messrs. Johnson, McDougall, and Hendricks, and defended by Messrs. Henderson, Yates, and Howard.

"Let us bring back the South," said Mr. Johnson, in closing his remarks, "so as to enable her to remove the desolation which has gone through her borders, restore her industry, attend to her products, instead of keeping her in a state of subjection without the slightest necessity. Peace once existing throughout the land, the restoration of all rights brought about, the Union will be at once in more prosperous existence than it ever was; and throughout the tide of time, as I believe, nothing in the future will ever cause us to dream of dissolution, or of subjecting any part, through the powerful instrumentality of any other part, to any dishonoring humiliation."

"I went down once on the Mississippi," remarked Mr. McDougall, "at the opening of the war. I met a general of the Confederate army, and I took him by the hand and took him to my state-room, on board of my gun-boat. Said he, 'General,' throwing his arms around me, 'how hard it is that you and I have to fight.' That was the generosity of a combatant. I repeated to him, 'It is hard,' and he and I drank a bottle of wine or two—just as like as not. [Laughter.] This thing of bearing malice is one of the wickedest sins that men can bear under their clothes."

Speaking of the third section, which had encountered great opposition, as inflicting undue punishment upon prominent rebels, Mr. Henderson said: "If this provision be all, it will be an act of the most stupendous mercy that ever mantled the crimes of rebellion."

"Let us suppose a case," said Mr. Yates. "Here is a man—Winder, or Dick Turner, or some other notorious character. He has been the cause of the death of that boy of yours. He has shot at him from behind an ambuscade, or he has starved him to death in the Andersonville prison, or he has made him lie at Belle Isle, subject to disease and death from the miasma by which he was surrounded. When he is upon trial and the question is, 'Sir, are you guilty, or are you not guilty?' and he raises his blood-stained hands, deep-dyed in innocent and patriotic blood, the Senator from Pennsylvania rises and says, 'For God's sake! do not deprive him of the right to go to the legislature.' The idea is that if a man has forfeited his life, it is too great a punishment to deprive him of the privilege of holding office."

Speaking of radicalism, Mr. Yates remarked: "My fear is not that this Congress will be too radical; I am not afraid of this Congress being shipwrecked upon any proposition of radicalism; but I fear from timid and cowardly conservatism which will not risk a great people to take their destiny in their own hands, and to settle this great question upon the principles of equality, justice, and liberality. That is my fear."

Mr. Doolittle moved that the several sections of the amendment be submitted to the States as separate articles. This motion was rejected—yeas, 11; nays, 33.

The vote was finally taken upon the adoption of the constitutional amendment as a whole. It passed the Senate by a majority of more than two-thirds, as follows:

YEAS—Messrs. Anthony, Chandler, Clark, Conness, Cragin, Creswell, Edmunds, Fessenden, Foster, Grimes, Harris, Henderson, Howard, Howe, Kirkwood, Lane of Indiana, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Nye, Poland, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Trumbull, Wade, Willey, Williams, Wilson, and Yates—33.

NAYS—Messrs. Cowan, Davis, Doolittle, Guthrie, Hendricks, Johnson, McDougall, Norton, Riddle, Saulsbury, and Van Winkle—11.

On the 13th of June, the joint resolution, having been modified in the Senate, reaeppeared in the House for the concurrence of that branch of Congress. There was a short discussion of the measure as amended in the Senate. Messrs. Rogers, Finck, and Harding spoke against the resolution, and Messrs. Spalding, Henderson, and Stevens in its favor.

"The first proposition," said Mr. Rogers, "was tame in iniquity, injustice, and violation of fundamental liberty to the one before us."

"I say," said Mr. Finck, "it is an outrage upon the people of those States who were compelled to give their aid and assistance in the rebellion. You propose to inflict upon these people a punishment not known to the law in existence at the time any offense may have been committed, but after the offense has been committed."

"Let me tell you," said Mr. Harding, "you are preparing for revolutions after revolutions. I warn you there will be no peace in this country until each State be allowed to control its own citizens. If you take that from them, what care I for the splendid machinery of a national government?"

Mr. Stevens briefly addressed the House before the final vote was taken. He had just risen from a sick-bed, and ridden to the Capitol at the peril of his life. During the quarter of an hour which he occupied in speaking, the solemnity was such as is seldom seen in that assembly. Members left their seats, and gathered closely around the venerable man to hear his brave and solemn words. From his youth he had hoped to see our institutions freed from every vestige of human oppression, of inequality of rights, of the recognized degradation of the poor and the superior caste of the rich. But that bright dream had vanished. "I find," said he, "that we shall be obliged to be content with patching up the worst portions of the ancient edifice, and leaving it in many of its parts to be swept through by the tempests, the frosts, and the storms of despotism."

It might be inquired why, with his opinions, he accepted so imperfect a proposition. "Because," said he, "I live among men, and not among angels; among men as intelligent, as determined, and as independent as myself, who, not agreeing with me, do not choose to yield their opinions to mine." With an enfeebled voice, yet with a courageous air, he charged the responsibility for that day's patchwork upon the Executive. "With his cordial assistance," said Mr. Stevens, "the rebel States might have been made model republics, and this nation an empire of universal freedom; but he preferred 'restoration' to 'reconstruction.'"

The question was taken, and the joint resolution passed the House by a vote of over three-fourths—120 yeas to 32 nays. From the necessary absence of many members, the vote was not full, yet the relative majority in favor of this measure was greater than in the former vote.

The following is the Constitutional Amendment as it passed both Houses of Congress:

"ARTICLE—.

"SEC. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

"SEC. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of such male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

"SEC. 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

"SEC. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void.