XI. THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL, AND THE VETO…

XI. THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL, AND THE VETO

Doubts as to the President's Decision -- Suspense ended -- The Veto Message -- Mr. Trumbull's Answer -- Mr. Reverdy Johnson defends the Message -- Rejoinder -- Remarks of Mr. Yates -- Mr. Cowan appeals to the Country -- Mr. Stewart shows how States may make the Law a Nullity -- Mr. Wade -- Mr. McDougall on Persian Mythology -- Mr. J. H. Lane defends the President -- Mr. Wade -- The President's Collar -- Mr. Brown -- Mr. Doolittle -- Mr. Garrett Davis -- Mr. Saulsbury -- Yeas and Nays in the Senate -- Vote in the House -- The Civil Rights Bill becomes a Law.

The Civil Rights Bill having finally passed through Congress, on the 15th of March, by the concurrence of the Senate in the amendments of the House, was submitted to the President for his approval. Much anxiety was felt throughout the country to know what would be the fate of the bill at the hands of the Executive. Some thought it incredible that a President of the United States would veto so plain a declaration of rights, essential to the very existence of a large class of inhabitants. Others were confident that Mr. Johnson's approval would not be given to a bill interfering, as they thought, so flagrantly with the rights of the States under the Constitution.

All doubts were dispelled, on the 27th of March, by the appearance of the President's Secretary on the floor of the Senate, who said, in formal phrase: "Mr. President, I am directed by the President of the United States to return to the Senate, in which house it originated, the bill entitled 'An act to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and to furnish the means of their vindication,' with his objections thereto in writing."

The Secretary of the Senate then read the message, which was heard with profound attention by the Senators, and a large assembly which thronged the galleries, drawn thither in anticipation of the President's veto message.

"To the Senate of the United States:

"I regret that the bill which has passed both houses of Congress, entitled 'An act to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and furnish the means for their vindication,' contains provisions which I can not approve, consistently with my sense of duty to the whole people and my obligations to the Constitution of the United States. I am therefore constrained to return it to the Senate, the house in which it originated, with my objections to its becoming a law.

"By the first section of the bill, all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of the United States. This provision comprehends the Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people called Gypsies, as well as the entire race designated as blacks, people of color, negroes, mulattoes, and persons of African blood. Every individual of those races, born in the United States, is by the bill made a citizen of the United States. It does not purport to declare or confer any other right of citizenship than Federal citizenship. It does not purport to give these classes of persons any status as citizens of States, except that which may result from their status as citizens of the United States. The power to confer the right of State citizenship is just as exclusively with the several States as the power to confer the right of Federal citizenship is with Congress.

"The right of Federal citizenship thus to be conferred on the several excepted races before mentioned is now, for the first time, proposed to be given by law. If, as is claimed by many, all persons who are native-born, already are, by virtue of the Constitution, citizens of the United States, the passage of the pending bill can not be necessary to make them such. If, on the other hand, such persons are not citizens, as may be assumed from the proposed legislation to make them such, the grave question presents itself, whether, when eleven of the thirty-six States are unrepresented in Congress, at this time it is sound policy to make our entire colored population and all other excepted classes citizens of the United States? Four millions of them have just emerged from slavery into freedom. Can it be reasonably supposed that they possess the requisite qualifications to entitle them to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States? Have the people of the several States expressed such a conviction? It may also be asked whether it is necessary that they should be declared citizens in order that they may be secured in the enjoyment of civil rights? Those rights proposed to be conferred by the bill are, by Federal as well as by State laws, secured to all domiciled aliens and foreigners even before the completion of the process of naturalization, and it may safely be assumed that the same enactments are sufficient to give like protection and benefits to those for whom this bill provides special legislation. Besides, the policy of the Government, from its origin to the present time, seems to have been that persons who are strangers to and unfamiliar with our institutions and our laws should pass through a certain probation, at the end of which, before attaining the coveted prize, they must give evidence of their fitness to receive and to exercise the rights of citizens as contemplated by the Constitution of the United States.

"The bill, in effect, proposes a discrimination against large numbers of intelligent, worthy, and patriotic foreigners, and in favor of the negro, to whom, after long years of bondage, the avenues to freedom and intelligence have now been suddenly opened. He must, of necessity, from his previous unfortunate condition of servitude, be less informed as to the nature and character of our institutions than he who, coming from abroad, has to some extent at least, familiarized himself with the principles of a Government to which he voluntarily intrusts 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' Yet it is now proposed by a single legislative enactment to confer the rights of citizens upon all persons of African descent, born within the extended limits of the United States, while persons of foreign birth, who make our land their home, must undergo a probation of five years, and can only then become citizens upon proof that they are of 'good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same.'

"The first section of the bill also contains an enumeration of the rights to be enjoyed by these classes, so made citizens, 'in every State and Territory in the United, States.' These rights are, 'To make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property,' and to have 'full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens.' So, too, they are made subject to the same punishment, pains, and penalties in common with white citizens, and to none others. Thus a perfect equality of the white and black races is attempted to be fixed by Federal law, in every State of the Union, over the vast field of State jurisdiction covered by these enumerated rights. In no one of these can any State ever exercise any power of discrimination between the different races.

"In the exercise of State policy over matters exclusively affecting the people of each State, it has frequently been thought expedient to discriminate between the two races. By the statutes of some of the States, Northern as well as Southern, it is enacted, for instance, that no white person shall intermarry with a negro or mulatto. Chancellor Kent says, speaking of the blacks, that 'marriages between them and whites are forbidden in some of the States where slavery does not exist, and they are prohibited in all the slaveholding States, and when not absolutely contrary to law, they are revolting, and regarded as an offense against public decorum.'

"I do not say this bill repeals State laws on the subject of marriage between the two races, for as the whites are forbidden to intermarry with the blacks, the blacks can only make such contracts as the whites themselves are allowed to make, and therefore can not, under this bill, enter into the marriage contract with the whites. I cite this discrimination, however, as an instance of the State policy as to discrimination, and to inquire whether, if Congress can abrogate all State laws of discrimination between the two races in the matter of real estate, of suits, and of contracts generally, Congress may not also repeal the State laws as to the contract of marriage between the two races? Hitherto every subject embraced in the enumeration of rights contained in this bill has been considered as exclusively belonging to the States. They all relate to the internal policy and economy of the respective States. They are matters which in each State concern the domestic condition of its people, varying in each according to its own peculiar circumstances, and the safety and well-being of its own citizens. I do not mean to say that upon all these subjects there are not Federal restraints, as, for instance, in the State power of legislation over contracts, there is a Federal limitation that no State shall pass a law impairing the obligations of contracts; and as to crimes, that no State shall pass an ex post facto law; and as to money, that no State shall make any thing but gold and silver a legal tender. But where can we find a Federal prohibition against the power of any State to discriminate, as do most of them, between aliens and citizens, between artificial persons called corporations and natural persons, in the right to hold real estate?

"If it be granted that Congress can repeal all State laws discriminating between whites and blacks, in the subjects covered by this bill, why, it may be asked, may not Congress repeal in the same way all State laws discriminating between the two races on the subject of suffrage and office? If Congress can declare by law who shall hold lands, who shall testify, who shall have capacity to make a contract in a State, then Congress can by law also declare who, without regard to color or race, shall have the right to sit as a juror or as a judge, to hold any office, and, finally, to vote, 'in every State and Territory of the United States.' As respects the Territories, they come within the power of Congress, for, as to them, the law-making power is the Federal power; but as to the States, no similar provisions exist, vesting in Congress the power 'to make rules and regulations' for them.

"The object of the second section of the bill is to afford discriminating protection to colored persons in the full enjoyment of all the rights secured to them by the preceding section. It declares 'that any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any inhabitant of any State or Territory to the deprivation of any right secured or protected by this act, or to different punishment, pains, or penalties on account of such person having at one time been held in a condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, or by reason of his color or race, than is prescribed for the punishment of white persons, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $1,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, in the discretion of the court.' This section seems to be designed to apply to some existing or future law of a State or Territory which may conflict with the provisions of the bill now under consideration. It provides for counteracting such forbidden legislation by imposing fine and imprisonment upon the legislators who may pass such conflicting laws, or upon the officers or agents who shall put, or attempt to put, them into execution. It means an official offense, not a common crime committed against law upon the persons or property of the black race. Such an act may deprive the black man of his property, but not of the right to hold property. It means a deprivation of the right itself, either by the State Judiciary or the State Legislature. It is therefore assumed that, under this section, members of State Legislatures who should vote for laws conflicting with the provisions of the bill; that judges of the State courts who should render judgments in antagonism with its terms; and that marshals and sheriffs, who should, as ministerial officers, execute processes, sanctioned by State laws and issued by State judges, in execution of their judgments, could be brought before other tribunals, and there subjected to fine and imprisonment for the performance of the duties which such State laws might impose.

"The legislation thus proposed invades the judicial power of the State. It says to every State court or judge, If you decide that this act is unconstitutional; if you refuse, under the prohibition of a State law, to allow a negro to testify; if you hold that over such a subject-matter the State law is paramount, and 'under color' of a State law refuse the exercise of the right to the negro, your error of judgment, however conscientious, shall subject you to fine and imprisonment. I do not apprehend that the conflicting legislation which the bill seems to contemplate is so likely to occur as to render it necessary at this time to adopt a measure of such doubtful constitutionality.

"In the next place, this provision of the bill seems to be unnecessary, as adequate judicial remedies could be adopted to secure the desired end without invading the immunities of legislators, always important to be preserved in the interest of public liberty; without assailing the independence of the judiciary, always essential to the preservation of individual rights; and without impairing the efficiency of ministerial officers, always necessary for the maintenance of public peace and order. The remedy proposed by this section seems to be, in this respect, not only anomalous, but unconstitutional; for the Constitution guarantees nothing with certainty, if it does not insure to the several States the right of making and executing laws in regard to all matters arising within their jurisdiction, subject only to the restriction that, in cases of conflict with the Constitution and constitutional laws of the United States, the latter should be held to be the supreme law of the land.

"The third section gives the district courts of the United States exclusive 'cognizance of all crimes and offenses committed against the provisions of this act,' and concurrent jurisdiction with the circuit courts of the United States of all civil and criminal cases 'affecting persons who are denied or can not enforce in the courts or judicial tribunals of the State or locality where they may be any of the rights secured to them by the first section.' The construction which I have given to the second section is strengthened by this third section, for it makes clear what kind of denial or deprivation of the rights secured by the first section was in contemplation. It is a denial or deprivation of such rights 'in the courts or judicial tribunals of the State.' It stands, therefore, clear of doubt, that the offense and the penalties provided in the second section are intended for the State judge, who, in the clear exercise of his function as a judge, not acting ministerially, but judicially, shall decide contrary to this Federal law. In other words, when a State judge, acting upon a question involving a conflict between a State law and a Federal law, and bound, according to his own judgment and responsibility, to give an impartial decision between the two, comes to the conclusion that the State law is valid and the Federal law is invalid, he must not follow the dictates of his own judgment, at the peril of fine and imprisonment. The legislative department of the Government of the United States thus takes from the judicial department of the States the sacred and exclusive duty of judicial decision, and converts the State judge into a mere ministerial officer, bound to decree according to the will of Congress.

"It is clear that, in States which deny to persons whose rights are secured by the first section of the bill any one of those rights, all criminal and civil cases affecting them will, by the provisions of the third section, come under the exclusive cognizance of the Federal tribunals. It follows that if, in any State which denies to a colored person any one of all those rights, that person should commit a crime against the laws of the State--murder, arson, rape, or any other crime--all protection and punishment through the courts of the State are taken away, and he can only be tried and punished in the Federal courts. How is the criminal to be tried? If the offense is provided for and punished by Federal law, that law, and not the State law, is to govern.

"It is only when the offense does not happen to be within the purview of the Federal law that the Federal courts are to try and punish him under any other law; then resort is to be had to 'the common law, as modified and changed' by State legislation, 'so far as the same is not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States.' So that over this vast domain of criminal jurisprudence, provided by each State for the protection of its own citizens, and for the punishment of all persons who violate its criminal laws, Federal law, wherever it can be made to apply, displaces State law.

"The question here naturally arises, from what source Congress derives the power to transfer to Federal tribunals certain classes of cases embraced in this section. The Constitution expressly declares that the judicial power of the United States 'shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; to all cases affecting embassadors, other public ministers, and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; to controversies to which the United States shall be a party; to controversies between two or more States, between a State and citizens of another State, between citizens of different States, between citizens of the same State claiming land under grants of different States, and between a State, or the citizens thereof, and foreign States, citizens, or subjects.'

"Here the judicial power of the United States is expressly set forth and defined; and the act of September 24, 1789, establishing the judicial courts of the United States, in conferring upon the Federal courts jurisdiction over cases originating in State tribunals, is careful to confine them to the classes enumerated in the above recited clause of the Constitution. This section of the bill undoubtedly comprehends case, and authorizes the exercise of powers that are not, by the Constitution, within the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States. To transfer them to those courts would be an exercise of authority well calculated to excite distrust and alarm on the part of all the States; for the bill applies alike to all of them--as well to those that have as to those that have not been engaged in rebellion.

"It may be assumed that this authority is incident to the power granted to Congress by the Constitution, as recently amended, to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the article declaring that 'neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.' It can not, however, be justly claimed that, with a view to the enforcement of this article of the Constitution, there is, at present, any necessity for the exercise of all the powers which this bill confers.

"Slavery has been abolished, and, at present, nowhere exists within the jurisdiction of the United States; nor has there been, nor is it likely there will be, any attempt to revive it by the people of the States. If, however, any such attempt shall be made, it will then become the duty of the General Government to exercise any and all incidental powers necessary and proper to maintain inviolate this great constitutional law of freedom.

"The fourth section of the bill provides that officers and agents of the Freedmen's Bureau shall be empowered to make arrests, and also that other officers may be specially commissioned for that purpose by the President of the United States. It also authorizes circuit courts of the United States and the superior courts of the Territories to appoint, without limitation, commissioners, who are to be charged with the performance of quasi judicial duties. The fifth section empowers the commissioners so to be selected by the courts to appoint, in writing, under their hands, one or more suitable persons, from time to time, to execute warrants and other processes described by the bill. These numerous official agents are made to constitute a sort of police, in addition to the military, and are authorized to summon a posse comitatus and even to call to their aid such portion of the land and naval forces of the United States, or of the militia, 'as may be necessary to the performance of the duty with which they are charged.'

"This extraordinary power is to be conferred upon agents irresponsible to the Government and to the people, to whose number the discretion of the commissioners is the only limit, and in whose hands such authority might be made a terrible engine of wrong, oppression, and fraud. The general statutes regulating the land and naval forces of the United States, the militia, and the execution of the laws, are believed to be adequate for every emergency which can occur in time of peace. If it should prove otherwise, Congress can, at any time, amend those laws in such manner as, while subserving the public welfare, not to jeopard the rights, interests, and liberties of the people.

"The seventh section provides that a fee of ten dollars shall be paid to each commissioner in every case brought before him, and a fee of five dollars to his deputy, or deputies, 'for each person he or they may arrest and take before any such commissioner,' 'with such other fees as may be deemed reasonable by such commissioner,' 'in general for performing such other duties as may be required in the premises.' All these fees are to be 'paid out of the Treasury of the United States,' whether there is a conviction or not; but, in case of conviction, they are to be recoverable from the defendant. It seems to me that, under the influence of such temptations, bad men might convert any law, however beneficent, into an instrument of persecution and fraud.

"By the eighth section of the bill, the United States courts, which sit only in one place for white citizens, must migrate, with the marshal and district attorney (and necessarily with the clerk, although he is not mentioned), to any part of the district, upon the order of the President, and there hold a court 'for the purpose of the more speedy arrest and trial of persons charged with a violation of this act;' and there the judge and the officers of the court must remain, upon the order of the President, 'for the time therein designated.'

"The ninth section authorizes the 'President, or such person as he may empower for that purpose, to employ such part of the land and naval forces of the United States, or of the militia, as shall be necessary to prevent the violation and enforce the due execution of this act.' This language seems to imply a permanent military force, that is to be always at hand, and whose only business is to be the enforcement of this measure over the vast region where it is intended to operate.

"I do not propose to consider the policy of this bill. To me the details of the bill seem fraught with evil. The white race and the black race of the South have hitherto lived together under the relation of master and slave--capital owning labor. Now, suddenly, that relation is changed, and, as to the ownership, capital and labor are divorced. They stand, now, each master of itself. In this new relation, one being necessary to the other, there will be a new adjustment, which both are deeply interested in making harmonious. Each has equal power in settling the terms, and, if left to the laws that regulate capital and labor, it is confidently believed that they will satisfactorily work out the problem. Capital, it is true, has more intelligence; but labor is never so ignorant as not to understand its own interests, not to know its own value, and not to see that capital must pay that value. This bill frustrates this adjustment. It intervenes between capital and labor, and attempts to settle questions of political economy through the agency of numerous officials, whose interest it will be to foment discord between the two races; for, as the breach widens, their employment will continue, and when it is closed, their occupation will terminate.

"In all our history, in all our experience as a people living under Federal and State law, no such system as that contemplated by the details of this bill has ever before been proposed or adopted. They establish, for the security of the colored race, safeguards which go infinitely beyond any that the General Government has ever provided for the white race. In fact, the distinction of race and color is, by the bill, made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race. They interfere with the municipal legislation of the States, with the relations existing exclusively between a State and its citizens, or between inhabitants of the same State--an absorption and assumption of power by the General Government which, if acquiesced in, must sap and destroy our federative system of limited powers, and break down the barriers which preserve the rights of the States. It is another step, or rather stride, to centralization and the concentration of all legislative power in the National Government. The tendency of the bill must be to resuscitate the spirit of rebellion, and to arrest the progress of those influences which are more closely drawing around the States the bonds of union and peace.

"My lamented predecessor, in his proclamation of the 1st of January, 1863, ordered and declared that all persons held as slaves within certain States and parts of States therein designated, were and thenceforward should be free; and, further, that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, would recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons. This guarantee has been rendered especially obligatory and sacred by the amendment of the Constitution abolishing slavery throughout the United States. I, therefore, fully recognize the obligation to protect and defend that class of our people whenever and wherever it shall become necessary, and to the full extent compatible with the Constitution of the United States.

"Entertaining these sentiments, it only remains for me to say that I will cheerfully coöperate with Congress in any measure that may be necessary for the protection of the civil rights of the freedmen, as well as those of all other classes of persons throughout the United States, by judicial process under equal and impartial laws, in conformity with the provisions of the Federal Constitution.

"I now return the bill to the Senate, and regret that, in considering the bills and joint resolutions--forty-two in number--which have been thus far submitted for my approval, I am compelled to withhold my assent from a second measure that has received the sanction of both houses of Congress.

"ANDREW JOHNSON.

"WASHINGTON, D. C., March 27, 1866."

The death and funeral obsequies of Senator Foot prevented the Senate from proceeding to the consideration of the President's veto message for more than a week after it was read. On the 4th of April the Civil Rights Bill came up to be reconsidered, the question being, "Shall the bill pass, the objections of the President notwithstanding."

It devolved upon Mr. Trumbull, the author of the bill, to answer the objections of the President. In answer to the President's position that the bill conferred only Federal citizenship, and did not give any status as citizens of States, Mr. Trumbull said: "Is it true that when a person becomes a citizen of the United States he is not also a citizen of every State where he may happen to be? On this point I will refer to a decision pronounced by the Supreme Court of the United States, delivered by Chief-Justice Marshall, the most eminent jurist who ever sat upon an American bench. In the case of Gassies vs. Ballon, reported in 6 Peters, the Chief-Justice, in delivering the opinion of the court, says:

"'The defendant in error is alleged in the proceedings to be a citizen of the United Stated States, naturalized in Louisiana, and residing there. This is equivalent to an averment that he is a citizen of that State. A citizen of the United States residing in any State of the Union is a citizen of that State.'"

The message declared "that the right of Federal citizenship is now for the first time proposed to be given by law." "This," said Mr. Trumbull, "is not a misapprehension of the law, but a mistake in fact, as will appear by references to which I shall call the attention of the Senate." Mr. Trumbull then referred to the "collective naturalization" of citizens of Louisiana, Texas, and Cherokees, Choctaw, and Stockbridge Indians.

To the remark in the message that "if, as many claim, native-born persons are already citizens of the United States, this bill can not be necessary to make them such," Mr. Trumbull replied: "An act declaring what the law is, is one of the most common of acts known by legislative bodies. When there is any question as to what the law is, and for greater certainty, it is the most common thing in the world to pass a statute declaring it."

To the objection that eleven States were unrepresented, the Senator replied: "This is a standing objection in all the veto messages, yet the President has signed some forty bills. If there is any thing in this objection, no bill can pass Congress till the States are represented here. Sir, whose fault is it that eleven States are not represented? By what fault of theirs is it that twenty-five loyal States which have stood by this Union and by the Constitution are to be deprived of their right to legislate? If the reason assigned is a good one now, it has been a good one all the time for the last five years. If the fact that some States have rebelled against the Government is to take from the Government the right to legislate, then the criminal is to take advantage of his crime; the innocent are to be punished for the guilty.

"But the President tells us that 'the bill, in effect, proposes a discrimination against large numbers of intelligent, worthy, and patriotic foreigners, and in favor of the negro.' Is that true? What is the bill? It declares that there shall be no distinction in civil rights between any other race or color and the white race. It declares that there shall be no different punishment inflicted on a colored man in consequence of his color than that which is inflicted on a white man for the same offense. Is that a discrimination in favor of the negro and against the foreigner--a bill the only effect of which is to preserve equality of rights?

"But perhaps it may be replied to this that the bill proposes to make a citizen of every person born in the United States, and, therefore, it discriminates in that respect against the foreigner. Not so; foreigners are all upon the same footing, whether black or white. The white child who is born in the United States a citizen is not to be presumed at its birth to be the equal intellectually with the worthy, intelligent, and patriotic foreigner who emigrates to this country. And, as is suggested by a Senator behind me, even the infant child of a foreigner born in this land is a citizen of the United States long before his father. Is this, therefore, a discrimination against foreigners?

"The President also has an objection to the making citizens of Chinese and Gypsies. I am told that but few Chinese are born in this country, and where the Gypsies are born, I never knew. [Laughter.] Like Topsy, it is questionable, whether they were born at all, but 'just come.' [Laughter.]

"But, sir, perhaps the best answer to this objection that the bill proposes to make citizens of Chinese and Gypsies, and this reference to the foreigners, is to be found in a speech delivered in this body by a Senator occupying, I think, the seat now occupied across the chamber by my friend from Oregon, [Mr. Williams,] less than six years ago, in reply to a message sent to this body by Mr. Buchanan, the then President of the United States, returning, with his objections, what was known as the Homestead Bill. On that occasion the Senator to whom I allude said:

"'But this idea about "poor foreigners," somehow or other, bewilders and haunts the imagination of a great many. * * * * *

"'I am constrained to say that I look upon this objection to the bill as a mere quibble on the part of the President, and as being hard-pressed for some excuse in withholding his approval of the measure; and his allusion to foreigners in this connection looks to me more like the ad captandum of the mere politician or demagogue, than a grave and sound reason to be offered by the President of the United States in a veto message upon so important a measure as the Homestead Bill.'

"That was the language of Senator Andrew Johnson, now President of the United States. [Laughter.] That is probably the best answer to this objection, though I should hardly have ventured to use such harsh language in reference to the President as to accuse him of quibbling and of demagoguery, and of playing the mere politician in sending a veto message to the Congress of the United States."

The President had urged an objection that if Congress could confer civil rights upon persons without regard to color or race, it might also confer upon them political rights, and among them that of suffrage. In reply to this, Mr. Trumbull referred to the policy of the President himself in undertaking to "reörganize State governments in the disloyal States." He "claimed and exercised the power to protect colored persons in their civil rights," and yet, when "urged to allow loyal blacks to vote," he held that "he had no power; it was unconstitutional."

"But, sir," continued Mr. Trumbull, "the granting of civil rights does not and never did, in this country, carry with it rights, or, more properly speaking, political privileges. A man may be a citizen in this country without a right to vote or without a right to hold office. The right to vote and hold office in the States depends upon the legislation of the various States; the right to hold certain offices under the Federal Government depends upon the Constitution of the United States. The President must be a natural-born citizen, and a Senator or Representative must be a citizen of the United States for a certain number of years before he is eligible to a seat either in this or the other House of Congress; so that the fact of being a citizen does not necessarily qualify a person for an office, nor does it necessarily authorize him to vote. Women are citizens; children are citizens; but they do not exercise the elective franchise by virtue of their citizenship. Foreigners, as is stated by the President in this message, before they are naturalized are protected in the rights enumerated in this bill, but because they possess those rights in most, if not all, the States, that carries with it no right to vote.

"But, sir, what rights do citizens of the United States have? To be a citizen of the United States carries with it some rights, and what are they? They are those inherent, fundamental rights which belong to free citizens or free men in all countries, such as the rights enumerated in this bill, and they belong to them in all the States of the Union. The right of American citizenship means something. It does not mean, in the case of a foreigner, that when he is naturalized he is to be left entirely to the mercy of State legislation. He has a right, when duly naturalized, to go into any State of the Union, and to reside there, and the United States Government will protect him in that right. It will protect a citizen of the United States, not only in one of the States of the Union, but it will protect him in foreign lands.

"Every person residing in the United States is entitled to the protection of that law by the Federal Government, because the Federal Government has jurisdiction of such questions. American citizenship would be little worth if it did not carry protection with it.

"How is it that every person born in these United States owes allegiance to the Government? Every thing that he is or has, his property and his life, may be taken by the Government of the United States in its defense, or to maintain the honor of the nation. And can it be that our ancestors struggled through a long war and set up this Government, and that the people of our day have struggled through another war, with all its sacrifices and all its desolation, to maintain it, and at last that we have got a Government which is all-powerful to command the obedience of the citizen, but has no power to afford him protection? Is that all that this boasted American citizenship amounts to? Go tell it, sir, to the father whose son was starved at Andersonville; or the widow whose husband was slain at Mission Ridge; or the little boy who leads his sightless father through the streets of your city, made blind by the winds and the sand of the Southern coast; or the thousand other mangled heroes to be seen on every side, that this Government, in defense of which the son and the husband fell, the father lost his eyes, and the others were crippled, had the right to call these persons to its defense, but has no right to protect the survivors or their friends in any right whatever in any of the States. Sir, it can not be. Such is not the meaning of our Constitution. Such is not the meaning of American citizenship. This Government, which would go to war to protect its meanest--I will not say citizen--inhabitant, if you please, in any foreign land, whose rights were unjustly encroached upon, has certainly some power to protect its own citizens in their own country. Allegiance and protection are reciprocal rights."

To the President's objection to the second section of the bill, that it discriminated in favor of colored persons, Mr. Trumbull replied: "It says, in effect, that no one shall subject a colored person to a different punishment than that inflicted on a white person for the same offense. Does that discriminate in favor of the colored person? Why, sir, the very object and effect of the section is to prevent discrimination, and language, it seems to me, could not more plainly express that object and effect. It may be said that it is for the benefit of the black man, because he is now, in some instances, discriminated against by State laws; but that is the case with all remedial statutes. They are for the relief of the persons who need the relief, not for the relief of those who have the right already; and when those needing the relief obtain it, they stand upon the precise footing of those who do not need the benefit of the law."

The President had further objected to this section, that "it provides for counteracting such forbidden legislation by imposing fine and imprisonment upon the legislators who may pass such conflicting laws."

"Let us see," said Mr. Trumbull, "if that is the language or the proper construction of the section. I will read again the first lines of it. It declares 'that any person who, under color of any law, ordinance, regulation, or custom, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, etc., * * * shall be punished,' etc.

"Who is to be punished? Is the law to be punished? Are the men who make the law to be punished? Is that the language of the bill? Not at all. If any person, 'under color of any law,' shall subject another to the deprivation of a right to which he is entitled, he is to be punished. Who? The person who, under the color of the law, does the act, not the men who made the law. In some communities in the South a custom prevails by which different punishment is inflicted upon the blacks from that meted out to whites for the same offense. Does this section propose to punish the community where the custom prevails? or is it to punish the person who, under color of the custom, deprives the party of his right? It is a manifest perversion of the meaning of the section to assert any thing else.

"But it is said that under this provision judges of the courts and ministerial officers who are engaged in execution of any such statutes may be punished, and that is made an objection to this bill. I admit that a ministerial officer or a judge, if he acts corruptly or viciously in the execution or under color of an illegal act, may be and ought to be punished; but if he acted innocently, the judge would not be punished. Sir, what is a crime? It is a violation of some public law, to constitute which there must be an act, and a vicious will in doing the act; or, according to the definition in some of the law-books, to constitute a crime there must be a violation of a public law, in the commission of which there must be a union or joint operation of act and intent, or criminal negligence; and a judge who acted innocently, and not viciously or oppressively, would never be convicted under this act. But, sir, if he acted knowingly, viciously, or oppressively, in disregard of a law of the United States, I repeat, he ought to be punished, and it is no anomaly to prescribe a punishment in such a case. Very soon after the organization of this Government, in the first years of its existence, the Congress of the United States provided for punishing officers who, under color of State law, violated the laws of the United States."

Mr. Trumbull then read from an act of Congress passed in 1790, providing for the punishment of certain offenses against foreign ministers, and said: "By this provision all officers executing any process in violation of the laws of the United States are to be subject to a much longer imprisonment than is provided by this bill.

"But, sir, there is another answer, in my judgment, more conclusive, to all these objections to this second section, which is the vital part of the bill. Without it, it would scarcely be worth the paper on which the bill is written. A law without a penalty, without a sanction, is of little value to any body. What good does it do for the Legislature to say, 'Do this, and forbear to do that,' if no consequence is to follow the act of disobedience? This is the vitality of the bill. What is the objection that is made to it, and which seems even to have staggered some friends of the measure? It is because it reads in the first section that any person who, 'under color of law,' shall commit these offenses, shall be subject to the penalties of the law. Suppose those words had been left out, and the bill read, 'any person who shall subject any inhabitant of a State to different punishment by reason of his color shall be punished,' would there have been any objection to the bill then? That is the way most criminal laws read. That is the way the law punishing conspiracies against the Government reads. If two or more persons conspire together to overthrow the Government, or by force to resist its authority, they are liable to indictment, and, upon conviction, to imprisonment in the penitentiary and to heavy fine. Would the fact that the persons engaged in the conspiracy were judges or governors or ministerial officers, acting under color of any statute or custom, screen them from punishment? Surely not.

"The words 'under color of law' were inserted as words of limitation, and not for the purpose of punishing persons who would not have been subject to punishment under the act if they had been omitted. If an offense is committed against a colored person simply because he is colored, in a State where the law affords him the same protection as if he were white, this act neither has nor was intended to have any thing to do with his case, because he has adequate remedies in the State courts; but if he is discriminated against, under color of State laws, because he is colored, then it becomes necessary to interfere for his protection.

"The assumption that State judges and other officials are not to be held responsible for violations of United States laws when done under color of State statutes or customs is akin to the maxim of the English law that the king can do no wrong. It places officials above the law; it is the very doctrine out of which the rebellion was hatched.

"Every thing that was done by that wicked effort to overturn our Government was done under color of law. The rebels insisted that they had a right to secede; they passed ordinances of secession, they set up State governments, and all that they did was under color of law. And if parties committing these high crimes are to go free because they acted under color of law, why is not Jeff Davis and every other rebel chief discharged at once? Why did this country put forth all its resources of men and money to put down the rebellion against the authority of the Government except it had a right to do so, even as against those who were acting under color of law? Lee, with his rebel hordes, thundering upon the outskirts of this very city, was acting under color of law; every judge who has held a court in the Southern States for the last four years, and has tried and convicted of treason men guilty of no other offense than loyalty to the Union, acted under color of law.

"Sir, if we had authority by the use of the army and the war power to put down rebels acting under color of law, I put the question to every lawyer, if we had not authority to do that through the courts and the judicial tribunals if it had been practicable? Suppose it had been practicable, through the marshals, to arrest the Legislature which convened at Montgomery, and undertook to take the State of Alabama out of the Union and set up a government in hostility thereto, ought it not to have been done? Was not that a conspiracy against this Government? When the Legislature assembled at Montgomery in 1861, and resolved that the connection between Alabama and the United States was dissolved, and when its members took steps to maintain that declaration; when the same thing was done in South Carolina, and courts were organized to carry out the scheme, will any body tell me it would not have been competent, had it been practicable, for the United States courts in those States to have issued process for the arrest of every one of those legislators, governors, judges, and all. And, sir, had this been done, and it had turned out upon trial that any of the parties arrested had been engaged in armed hostility against the United States, as some of them had been when, with arms in their hands, they seized the arsenals and other public property of the United States, would they not have been found guilty of treason and hung for treason? and would the fact that they had acted under color of law have afforded them any protection?"

The President, in his Veto Message, had said, "I do not apprehend that the conflicting legislation which the bill seems to contemplate is so likely to occur as to render it necessary, at this time, to adopt a measure of such doubtful constitutionality."

"That statement," replied Mr. Trumbull, "makes it necessary that I should advert to the facts and show whether there is any likelihood of such conflicting legislation; and my testimony comes from the President himself, or those acting under his authority."

After having referred to legislative enactments of several of the Southern States very oppressive to the colored people, Mr. Trumbull remarked: "Now, sir, what becomes of this declaration that there is no necessity for any measure of this kind? Here are the laws of Texas, of Mississippi, of Virginia, to which I have referred; and laws equally oppressive exist in some of the other States. Is there no necessity to protect a freedman when he is liable to be whipped if caught away from home? no necessity to protect a freedman in his rights when he is not permitted to hold or lease a piece of ground in a State? no necessity to protect a freedman in his rights, who will be reduced to a slavery worse than that from which he has been emancipated if a law is permitted to be carried into effect? Sir, these orders emanate and this information comes from officers acting by presidential authority, and yet the President tells us there is no danger of conflicting legislation."

After having answered other objections of the President, Mr. Trumbull said: "I have now gone through this Veto Message, replying with what patience I could command to its various objections to the bill. Would that I could stop here, that there was no occasion to go further; but justice to myself, justice to the State whose representative I am, justice to the people of the whole country, in legislation for whose behalf I am called to participate, justice to the Constitution I am sworn to support, justice to the rights of American citizenship it secures, and to human liberty, now imperiled, require me to go further. Gladly would I refrain speaking of the spirit of this message, of the dangerous doctrines it promulgates, of the inconsistencies and contradictions of its author, of his encroachments upon the constitutional rights of Congress, of his assumption of unwarranted powers, which, if persevered in and not checked by the people, must eventually lead to a subversion of the Government and the destruction of liberty.

"Congress, in the passage of the bill under consideration, sought no controversy with the President. So far from it, the bill was proposed with a view to carry out what were supposed to be the views of the President, and was submitted to him before its introduction in the Senate. I am not about to relate private declarations of the President, but it is right that the American people should know that the controversy which exists between him and Congress in reference to this measure is of his own seeking. Soon after Congress met, it became apparent that there was a difference of opinion between the President and some members of Congress in regard to the condition of the rebellious States and the rights to be secured to freedmen.

"The President, in his annual message, had denied the constitutional power of the General Government to extend the elective franchise to negroes, but he was equally decided in the assertion of the right of every man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This was his language:

"'But while I have no doubt that now, after the close of the war, it is not competent for the General Government to extend the elective franchise in the several States, it is equally clear that good faith requires the security of the freedmen in their liberty and their property.'

"There were some members of Congress who expressed the opinion that in the reörganization of the rebellious States the right of suffrage should be extended to the colored man, though this was not the prevailing sentiment of Congress. All were anxious for a reörganization of the rebellious States, and their admission to full participation in the Federal Government as soon as these relations could be restored with safety to all concerned. Feeling the importance of harmonious action between the different departments of the Government, and an anxious desire to sustain the President, for whom I had always entertained the highest respect, I had frequent interviews with him during the early part of the session. Without mentioning any thing said by him, I may with propriety state that, acting from the considerations I have stated, and believing that the passage of a law by Congress, securing equality in civil rights to freedmen and all other inhabitants of the United States, when denied by State authorities, would do much to relieve anxiety in the North, to induce the Southern States to secure these rights by their own action, and thereby remove many of the obstacles to an early reconstruction, I prepared the bill substantially as it is now returned with the President's objections. After the bill was introduced and printed, a copy was furnished him, and at a subsequent period, when it was reported that he was hesitating about signing the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, he was informed of the condition of the Civil Rights Bill then pending in the House, and a hope expressed that if he had objections to any of its provisions he would make them known to its friends, that they might be remedied, if not destructive of the measure; that there was believed to be no disposition on the part of Congress, and certainly none on my part, to have bills presented to him which he could not approve. He never indicated to me, nor, so far as I know, to any of its friends, the least objection to any of the provisions of the bill till after its passage. And how could he, consistently with himself? The bill was framed, as was supposed, in entire harmony with his views, and certainly in harmony with what he was then and has since been doing in protecting freedmen in their civil rights all through the rebellious States. It was strictly limited to the protection of the civil rights belonging to every freeman, the birthright of every American citizen, and carefully avoided conferring or interfering with political rights or privileges of any kind.

* * * * "If the bill now before us, and which goes no further than to secure civil rights to the freedman, can not be passed, then the constitutional amendment proclaiming freedom to all the inhabitants of the land is a cheat and a delusion.

"I can not better conclude what I have to say than in the language of Mr. Johnson on the occasion of the veto of the Homestead Bill, when, after stating that the fact that the President was inconsistent and changed his opinion with reference to a great measure and a great principle, is no reason why a Senator or Representative, who has acted understandingly, should change his opinion. He said:

"'I hope the Senate and House of Representatives, who have sanctioned this bill by more than a two-thirds majority, will, according to the Constitution, exercise their privilege and power, and let the bill become a law of the land, according to the high behest of the American people.'"

On the next day, April 5th, Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, made a speech sustaining the Veto Message. He argued that negroes were not citizens of the United States by reason of their birth in the United States, and that Congress had no authority by law to declare them such. To sustain his position, he made quotations from the opinion of the minority in the Dred Scott case, as rendered by Mr. Justice Curtis. He then proceeded to reply to some of Mr. Trumbull's arguments against the Veto Message: "The honorable member from Illinois disposes of the President's objection to the first section of this bill by saying that it is merely declaratory. I know it is competent for any legislative body, on a question where difference of opinions exist in relation to any legal proposition, to remove them by declaratory legislation; but that is not the purpose of this bill. It professes to be passed in the exercise of a positive and absolute power to change the law--not to declare what the law was in order to remove doubts, but to make the law. It assumes, or otherwise there would be no occasion for it, that birth alone does not confer citizenship; and assuming that no citizenship would exist in consequence of birth alone, it declares that birth alone, in spite of State constitution and State laws, shall confer citizenship. Now, with all deference to the opinion of the honorable Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, that seems to me to be a proposition as clearly erroneous as any proposition can be in relation to constitutional law. The States were sovereign before the Constitution was adopted; and the Constitution not only, according to its very terms, does not profess to confer upon the Government of the United States all governmental power, but as far as Congress is concerned, professes to confer upon that department of the Government only the particular delegated powers there enumerated; but so anxious were the framers of that instrument and the great men of that day, to whom the subsequent organization of this Government was left, that although they had no doubt as to the principle that only the delegated powers were granted, (and the debates in the Convention itself as well as the debates in the conventions of the several States, when the Constitution was before them for adoption or rejection, all went upon the theory that no powers were conferred except such as were expressly granted, or as were reasonably implied to be as necessary to carry out the powers expressly granted,) by the tenth amendment adopted recently after the Constitution went into operation, and recommended by the men, many of whom were the framers of the Constitution itself, that the powers not delegated by the Constitution, and not denied to the States by the same instrument, were to be considered reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

"Standing, therefore, as well upon the nature of the Government itself, as a Government of enumerated powers specially delegated, as upon the express provision that every thing not granted was to be considered as remaining with the States unless the Constitution contained some particular prohibition of any power before belonging to the States, what doubt can there be that if a State possessed the power to declare who should be her citizens before the Constitution was adopted that power remains now as absolute and as conclusive as it was when the Constitution was adopted? The bill, therefore, changes the whole theory of the Government.

"The President, then, I think, is right. I go further than he does. He expresses a doubt whether Congress has the power; I affirm, with all deference to the better judgment of the majority of the Senate who voted for the bill, and to that of the honorable Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, that it is perfectly clear that no such power exists in Congress as the one attempted to be exercised by the first section. I hold, with Mr. Justice Curtis--and his opinion to this day has never been questioned--that citizenship of the United States consequent upon birth in a State is to depend upon the fact whether the constitution and laws of the State make the party so born a citizen of the State.

"But that is not all. This first section has another provision. Not satisfied with making the parties citizens and clothing them with all the rights belonging to white citizens by the laws of the States, it says that they 'shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other.' That invades the jurisdiction of the States over their criminal code. Congress assumes to define a crime, and defining a crime gives to its own courts exclusive jurisdiction over the crime and the party charged with its perpetration. It strikes at the criminal code of the States. The result, therefore, of the three provisions in this section is, that contrary to State constitutions and State laws, it converts a man that is not a citizen of a State into a citizen of the State; it gives him all the rights that belong to a citizen of the State; and it provides that his punishment shall only be such as the State laws impose upon white citizens. Where is the authority to do that? If it exists, it is still more obvious that the result is an entire annihilation of the power of the States. It seems to be the fashion of the hour--I do not know that my honorable friend from Illinois goes to that extent--to hold to the doctrine that the sooner every thing is vested in the Government of the United States the better for the country. It is a perilous delusion. If such a proposition had been supposed to be found any where in the Constitution of the United States, it never would have been adopted by the people; and if it is assumed, or if it is considered as constitutionally existing by virtue of some power not before known, the Government will not last half a century. I have not time to read from the writings of Mr. Madison and Mr. Hamilton and the decisions of the Supreme Court on the question.

"But you, Mr. President, know very well that consolidation of power in the Government of the United States was looked upon as certain ruin to republican institutions. In the first place, it would be sure to result in anarchy; and in the second place, in order to be saved from the horrors of anarchy, we should be compelled to take refuge in despotic power, and the days of constitutional liberty would soon be numbered. The doubt then was, and the doubt now should be more firmly settled in the public mind, that a country as extensive as that of the United States can not exist except by means of divided sovereignties; one sovereignty having charge of all external matters, or matters between the States to which the powers of the States are inadequate; the other sovereignties having power over all internal matters to the management of which they are adequate. Despotism would soon be our fate, preceded by anarchy; the military chieftain instead of being looked upon, as he should be by every republican, with alarm and concern, would be hailed as a savior, in order to save us from the horrors of disorganization.

"The honorable member referred to the act of 1790, but it relates entirely to different subjects, and all the statutes to which he adverted are statutes of the same description. What is the twenty-sixth section of the act of 1790 to which he referred? The preceding section provided that no one should sue a foreign minister, and the section to which my friend referred particularly, said that if a party did sue a foreign minister he should be liable to be punished. Certainly; but why? Because the Government of the United States was vested with the exclusive authority in all cases depending upon the law of nations; and the law of nations saving from responsibility embassadors accredited to the United States, for civil debts, he who attempted to interfere offended against the Government, and he offended in relation to a subject exclusively committed to the General Government. The power, therefore, which Congress exerted in the particular legislation to which the honorable member reverted is just the power which they exert when they provide for the punishment of any man who counterfeits the currency of the United States, or forges its paper, or forges its bonds, or interferes with the administration of the Post-office Department. These are all powers incidental to the possession of the express power, and in the case to which he adverted the express power was one necessarily belonging to the Government, because it was a power belonging to and regulated by the law of nations, and not by any municipal regulation.

"The honorable member from Illinois tells us that the President's objection, that there are eleven States not now represented, is entitled to no consideration whatever. The honorable member seems to suppose that the President adverted to the fact that there were eleven States not represented as showing that Congress possessed no constitutional authority to legislate upon the subject, supposing that they would have had the authority if those States were represented. That is not the view taken by the President; it is an entire misapprehension of the doctrine of the President. He says no such thing, and he intimates no such thing. But assuming, what in another part of the message he denies, that the authority might be considered as existing, he submits as a question of policy whether it is right to change the whole domestic economy of those eleven States, in the absence of any representation upon this floor from them. My honorable friend asks whose fault it is that they are not represented. Why are they not here? He says their hands are reeking with the blood of loyal men; that they are unable to take the oath which a statute that he assumes to be constitutional has provided; and he would have the country and the Senate to believe that that is the reason why they are not here. Is that the fact, Mr. President? These States are organized, and how organized? What have they done? They have abolished slavery by an astonishing unanimity; they have abolished nearly all the distinctions which antecedently existed between the two races. They have permitted the negroes to sue, they have permitted them to testify; they have not yet permitted them to vote.

"Why are they not received? Because, in the judgment of the Senate, before the States can be considered as restored, Congressional legislation on the subject is necessary. Whose fault is it that there has not been Congressional legislation? Is it the fault of the eleven States? Certainly not; it is our own fault. And why is it that we are in point of fact delaying their admission, whether it is to be considered as a fault or not? Because we want to inquire into the condition of these States. Why, in the name of Heaven! how long have we been here? We came here early in December, and this is the month of April; and here we may remain until July, or, as rumor has it, until next December; and shall we be satisfied within that time that Congressional legislation may be safely adopted?

"I have a word or two more to say. My honorable friend from Illinois, as it seemed to me--his nature is impulsive, and perhaps he was carried further than he intended--seemed to intimate that the President of the United States had not acted sincerely in this matter; that his usurpation was a clear one, and that he was to be censured for that usurpation. What has he done? He has vetoed this bill. He had a constitutional right to do so. Not only that; if he believed that the effect of the bill would be that which he states in his Veto Message, he was not only authorized but bound to veto it. His oath is to 'preserve' as well as to 'protect and defend' the Constitution of the United States; and believing, as he does, and in that opinion I concur, that this bill assails the Constitution of the United States, he would have been false to his plighted faith if he had not returned it with his objections.

"He desires--and who does not?--that the Union shall be restored as it originally existed. He has a policy which he thinks is best calculated to effect it. He may be mistaken, but he is honest. Congress may differ with him. I hope they will agree sooner or later, because I believe, as I believe in my existence, that the condition in which the country now is can not remain without producing troubles that may shake our reputation, not only in our own eyes, but in the eyes of the civilized world. Let the day come when we shall be again together, and then, forgetting the past, hailing the present, and looking forward to the future, we shall remember, if we remember the past at all, for the exhibition of valor and gallantry displayed on both sides, and find in it, when we become one, a guarantee that in the future no foreign hostilities are to be dreaded, and that no civil discord need be apprehended."

Mr. Trumbull said: "The opinion of Judge Curtis, from which the Senator read, was the opinion of a dissenting judge, entitled to very great credit on account of the learning and ability of that judge, but it was not the opinion of the court, and an examination of the entire opinion, which is very lengthy, would perhaps not sustain the precise principles the Senator from Maryland laid down. But, sir, I have another authority which I think of equal weight with that of Judge Curtis--not pronounced in a judicial tribunal it is true, but by one of the most eminent members of the bar in this nation; I may say by a gentleman who stands at the head of the bar in America at this time--an opinion pronounced, too, in the exercise of official duties; and I propose to read a few sentences from that opinion, for it is to be found reported in the Congressional Globe containing the proceedings of this body less than ninety days ago. This is the language:

"'While they [negroes] were slaves, it was a very different question; but now, when slavery is terminated, and by terminating it you have got rid of the only obstacle in the way of citizenship, two questions arise: first, Whether that fact itself does not make them citizens? Before they were not citizens, because of slavery, and only because of slavery. Slavery abolished, why are they not just as much citizens as they would have been had slavery never existed? My opinion is that they become citizens, and I hold that opinion so strongly that I should consider it unnecessary to legislate on the subject at all, as far as that class is concerned, but for the ruling of the Supreme Court, to which I have adverted.'

"Sir, that opinion was held by the honorable Senator from Maryland who made this speech to-day. He holds the opinion so strongly now that slavery is abolished, which was the only obstacle in the way of their being citizens, that he would want no legislation on the subject but for the Dred Scott decision! What further did the Senator from Maryland say less than ninety days ago? It is possible, doubtless--it is not only possible but it is certainly true--that the Senator from Maryland, by reading the conclusive arguments of the Veto Message in regard to Chinese and Gypsies, has discovered that he was in error ninety days ago. I by no means mean to impute any wrong motive to the Senator from Maryland, but simply to ask that he will pardon me if I have not been able to see the conclusive reasoning of the Veto Message."

After quoting still further from Mr. Johnson's speech, made on a previous occasion, Mr. Trumbull said: "But as I am up, I will refer to one other point to which the Senator alluded, and that is in regard to the quotation which I made yesterday from the statute of 1790. I quoted that statute for the purpose of showing that the provisions in the bill under consideration, which it was insisted allowed the punishment of ministerial officers and judges who should act in obedience to State laws and under color of State laws, were not anomalous. I read a statute of 1790 to show that the Congress of the United States, at that day, provided for punishing both judges and officers who acted under color of State law in defiance of a law of the United States. How does the Senator answer that? He says that was on a different subject; the law of 1790 provided for punishing judges and officers who did an act in violation of the international law, jurisdiction over which is conferred upon the nation. Let me ask the Senator from Maryland, if the bill under discussion does not provide for the punishment of persons who violate a right secured by the Constitution of the United States? Is a right which a citizen holds by virtue of the Constitution of his country less sacred than a right which he holds by virtue of international law?"

Mr. Johnson replied as follows: "It is singular, in my estimation, how a gentleman with a mind as clear as Mr. Trumbull's, with a perspicacity that is a little surprising, could have fallen into the error of supposing that there is any inconsistency between the doctrine contained in the speech to which he has adverted and the one which I have maintained to-day. What I said then I say now, that as far as the United States are concerned, all persons born within the limits of the United States are to be considered as citizens, and that without reference to the color or the race; and after the abolition of slavery the negro would stand precisely in the condition of the white man. But the honorable member can hardly fail, I think--certainly he can not when I call his attention to it--to perceive that that has nothing to do with the question now before the Senate. His bill makes them citizens of the United States because of birth, and gives them certain rights within the States."

Mr. Fessenden asked: "Were not your remarks made on this very question in this bill?"

"No," replied Mr. Johnson; "on another bill." He continued: "What I maintain is this--and I have never doubted it, because I entertained the same opinion when I made those remarks that I entertain now--that citizenship of the United States, in consequence of birth, does not make a party a citizen of the State in which he is born unless the Constitution and laws of the State recognize him as a citizen. Now, what does this bill propose? All born within the United States are to be considered citizens of the United States, and as such shall have in every State all the rights that belong to any body else in the State as far as the particular subjects stated in the bill are concerned. Now, I did suppose, and I shall continue to suppose, it to be clear, unless I am met with the almost paramount authority of the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, that citizenship, by way of birth, conferred on the party as far as he and the United States were concerned, is not a citizenship which entitles him to the privilege of citizenship within the State where he is born; if it be true, and I submit that it is true beyond all doubt, that over the question of State citizenship the authority of the State Government is supreme.

"Now, the honorable member is confounding the status of a citizen of the United States and the status of a citizen of the United States who as such is a citizen of the State of his residence. Maintaining, as I do, that there is no authority to make any body a citizen of the United States so as to convert him thereby into a citizen of a State, there is no authority in the Constitution for this particular bill, which says that because he is a citizen of the United States he is to be considered a citizen of any State in which he may be at any time with reference to the rights conferred by this bill."

Mr. Trumbull replied: "I desire simply to remark that the speech from which I quoted, made by the Senator from Maryland, was made upon this very bill. It was in reference to this bill that he was speaking when he laid down the proposition that every person born in the United States since the abolition of slavery was a citizen of the United States, and if there was any doubt about it, it was proper for us to declare them so, and not only proper, but our duty to do so; and to make the matter specific, the honorable Senator voted for this proposition, which I will now read, on the yeas and nays:

"'All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign Power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States, without distinction of color.'

"Upon the adoption of that proposition as an amendment, it not being in the bill as originally introduced, the Senator from Maryland, with thirty others, voted in the affirmative. So we have his high authority for saying that all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign Power, are citizens of the United States, exactly as it appears in this bill."

"Mr. Yates, of Illinois, remarked: "I remember very well that the Senator from Maryland offered an amendment to the Freedmen's Bureau Bill to this effect: to strike out the words 'without distinction of color.' The Freedmen's Bureau Bill applied legislation by Congress to the freedmen in the States and to the condition of the freedmen in the States. It was legislation that affected the freedmen in the rebellious States. If I remember aright the Senator from Maryland moved to strike out the words 'without distinction of color' in one section of that bill, and for that motion he gave this reason: because, under the Constitution of the United States, as amended, abolishing slavery in all the States and Territories of the United States, the freedmen occupied precisely the same position with any other citizen of the United States in any State or Territory. I understood him as taking the broad position, which I have maintained, and which Republican Senators have maintained, and which I think the country maintains, that under the Constitution, as amended, the freedman occupies precisely the same position as any man born in any State or Territory of the United States; and that was the object, if I understood the Senator from Maryland, of his moving to amend the Freedmen's Bureau Bill by striking out the words 'without distinction of color.'

"I recognize the authority of the decisions quoted by the Senator from Maryland before the adoption of the amendment to the Constitution. The States had the power over the question of slavery in the States before the amendment to the Constitution; but by the amendment to the Constitution, in which the States have concurred, the freedman becomes a free man, entitled to the same rights and privileges as any other citizen of the United States."

Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, spoke in favor of the veto, premising that his words, "if they are not to convince any body in the Senate, may go to the country and be reflected on there." Mr. Cowan said he was quite willing that all the people of this country should enjoy the rights conferred upon them by this bill. But, supposing the bill had all the merit in the world, it would not be effective to attain the ends hoped for by its friends; and apart from that, its provisions were exceedingly dangerous. It gave married women and minors the right to make and enforce contracts. The grammatical structure of a portion of the bill was such as to enable a corrupt, passionate, or prejudiced judge to take advantage of it in order to widen the jurisdiction of the United States courts, and drag into them all the business which had heretofore occupied the State courts. This would be enough in this nineteenth century to make a man tremble for the fate of constitutional government. "If," said Mr. Cowan, "we had undoubted authority to pass this bill, under the circumstances I would not vote for it, on account of its objectionable phraseology, its dubious language, and the mischief which might attend upon a large and liberal construction of it in the District and Circuit Courts of the United States." The trouble and expense of obtaining justice in the United States courts, but one, or at most two existing in any of the Southern States, would debar the African from applying to them for redress. "Your remedy," said the Senator, "is delusive; your remedy is no remedy at all; and to hold it up to the world as a remedy is a gross fraud, however pious it may be. It is no remedy to the poor debtor that you prosecute his judge, and threaten him with fine and imprisonment. It is no remedy to the poor man with a small claim that you locate a court one or two hundred miles away from him which is so expensive in its administration of justice that he can not enter there.

"There is another provision of the bill, which, notwithstanding the act of Congress relied upon by the honorable Senator from Illinois, I think is unquestionably anomalous, and to me not only anomalous, but atrocious; and that is, the substitution of an indictment for the writ of error. What has been the law of these United States heretofore? When an act of Congress came in contact with a State law, and the judge of a State court decided that the law of Congress was unconstitutional, there was an appeal given to the debated party to the Supreme Court of the United States in order to determine the constitutionality of the law. But, sir, who, until the last few months, ever heard of making the judge a criminal because he decided against the constitutionality of a law of the United States? One would think we were being transported back to the dark ages of the world when a man is to be accused and perhaps convicted of a crime who has done nothing more than honestly and conscientiously discharged his duty. I know that the persons of embassadors are sacred, and I know that it is a very high offense against the law of nations, which no civil judge of any court could justify, to invade this sacred right of the embassador, but every body knows that that is an exceptional case. Every body knows that in all times and at all ages the judge was punishable who did not respect the person of an embassador. But that is not this case. That analogy will not help the third section of this bill. It is openly avowed upon the floor of the Senate of the United States, in the year of our Lord 1866, in the full blaze and light of the nineteenth century, that the indictment is to be a substitute for the writ of error, and it is justified because a judge ought to be indicted who violates the sacred person of an embassador! What potency there must be in the recent amendment of the Constitution which has foisted the negro and set him upon the same platform as the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Great Britain or of all the Russias to the United States of America, and made him as sacred as an embassador, and the judge who decides against him is to be punished as a criminal!"

Mr. Stewart showed that States might easily avoid all the annoying operations of this bill which were feared by its opponents: "When I reflect how very easy it is for the States to avoid the operation of this bill, how very little they have to do to avoid the operation of the bill entirely, I think that it is robbed of its coercive features, and I think no one has any reason to complain because Congress has exercised a power, which it must be conceded it has, when it has exercised it in a manner which leaves it so easy for the States to avoid the operation of this bill. If passed to-day, it has no operation in the State of Georgia; it is impossible to commit a crime under this bill in the State of Georgia; and the other States can place themselves in the same position so easily that I do not believe they ought to complain."

He then read the second section of an act passed in Georgia, precisely similar to the first section of the Civil Eights Bill. Nothing could be done in Georgia under "color of law," which would subject officers to the penalties provided by the Civil Rights Bill. "It being so easily avoided by being complied with, by doing a simple act of justice, by carrying out the spirit of the constitutional amendment, I can not give my consent to defeat a bill the purpose of which is good, the operation of which is so innocent, and may be so easily avoided."

The Republican Senators were desirous of bringing the bill to a final vote on this evening, but on account of the illness of Senator Wright, of New Jersey, it was proposed by Democratic members to appoint some hour on the following day when the vote should be taken in order that they might have a full vote.

Mr. Wade, of Ohio, said: "If this was a question in the ordinary course of legislation, I certainly would not object to the proposition which the gentlemen on the other side make; but I view it as one of the greatest and most fundamental questions that has ever come before this body for settlement, and I look upon it as having bearings altogether beyond the question on this bill. The bill is, undoubtedly, a very good one. There is no constitutional objection to it; there has been no objection to it raised that creates a doubt in the mind of any mortal man; but, nevertheless, we are at issue with the President of the United States upon a question peculiarly our own. The President of the United States has no more power under the Constitution to interpose his authority here, to prescribe the principle upon which these States should be admitted to this Union, than any man of this body has out of it. The Constitution makes him the executive of the laws that we make, and there it leaves him; and what is our condition? We who are to judge of the forms of government under which States shall exist; we, who are the only power that is charged with this great question, are to be somehow or other wheedled out of it by the President by reason of the authority that he sets up.

"Sir, we can not abandon it unless we yield to a principle that will unhinge and unsettle the balances of the Constitution itself. If the President of the United States can interpose his authority upon a question of this character, and can compel Congress to succumb to his dictation, he is an emperor, a despot, and not a President of the United States. Because I believe the great question of congressional power and authority is at stake here, I yield to no importunities of the other side. I feel myself justified in taking every advantage which the Almighty has put into my hands to defend the power and authority of this body, of which I claim to be a part. I will not yield to these appeals of comity on a question like this; but I will tell the President and every body else that, if God Almighty has stricken one member so that he can not be here to uphold the dictation of a despot, I thank him for his interposition, and I will take advantage of it if I can."

Mr. McDougall, of California, replied to Mr. Wade. This wayward Senator from California has wide notoriety from his unhappy habits of intemperance. He has been described by a writer unfriendly to his politics as "the most brilliant man in the Senate; a man so wonderfully rich, that though he seeks to beggar himself in talents and opportunities, he has left a patrimony large enough to outdazzle most of his colleagues." He frequently would enter the Senate-chamber in a condition of apparent stupor, unable to walk straight; and after listening a few moments to what was going on, has arisen and spoken upon the pending question in words of great beauty and force.

On this occasion Mr. McDougall is described as having been in a worse condition than usual. His words were muttered rather than spoken, so that only those immediately about him could hear; and yet his remarks were termed by one of his auditors as "one of the neatest little speeches ever heard in the Senate." His remarks were as follows: "The Senator from Ohio is in the habit of appealing to his God in vindication of his judgment and conduct; it is a common thing for him to do so; but in view of the present demonstration, it may well be asked who and what is his God. In the old Persian mythology there was an Ormudz and an Ahriman--a god of light and beauty, and a god of darkness and death. The god of light sent the sun to shine, and gentle showers to fructify the fields; the god of darkness sent the tornado, and the tempest, and the thunder, scathing with pestilence the nations. And in old Chaldean times men came to worship Ahriman, the god of darkness, the god of pestilence and famine; and his priests became multitudinous; they swarmed the land; and when men prayed then their offerings were, 'We will not sow a field of grain, we will not dig a well, we will not plant a tree.' These were the offerings to the dark spirit of evil, until a prophet came who redeemed that ancient land; but he did it after crucifixion, like our great Master.

"The followers of Ahriman always appealed to the same spirit manifested by the Senator from Ohio. Death is to be one of his angels now to redeem the Constitution and the laws, and to establish liberty. Sickness, suffering, evil, are to be his angels; and he thanks the Almighty, his Almighty, that sickness, danger, and evil are about! It may be a good god for him in this world; but if there is any truth in what we learn about the orders of religion in this Christian world, his faith will not help him when he shall ascend up and ask entrance at the crystal doors. If there can be evil expressed in high places that communicates evil thoughts, that communicates evil teachings, that demoralizes the youth, who receive impressions as does the wax, it is by such lessons as the Senator from Ohio now teaches by word of mouth as Senator in this Senate hall.

"Sir, the President of the United States is a constitutional officer, clothed with high power, and clothed with the very power which he has exercised in this instance; and those who conferred upon him these powers were men such as Madison, and Jay, and Hamilton, and Morris, and Washington, and a host of worthies; men who, I think, knew as much about the laws of government, and how they should be rightly balanced, as any of the wisest who now sit here in council. It is the duty of the President of the United States to stand as defender of the Constitution in his place as the conservator of the rights of the people, as tribune of the people, as it was in old Rome when the people did choose their tribunes to go into the senate-chamber among the aristocracy of Rome, and when they passed laws injurious to the Roman people, to stand and say, 'I forbid it.'

"That is the veto power, incorporated wisely by our fathers in the Constitution, conferred upon the President of the United States, and to be treated with consideration; and no appeal of the Senator to his God can change the Constitution or the rights of the President of the United States, or can prevent a just consideration of the dignity of this Senate body by persons who have just consideration, who feel that they are Senators.

"It is a strange thing, an exceedingly strange thing, that when a few Senators in the city of Washington, ill at their houses, give assurance that they can be here to act upon a great public question on the day following this, we should hear a piece of declamation, the Senator appealing to his God, and saying, with an Io triumphe air, 'Well or ill, God has made them ill.' Sir, the god of desolation, the god of darkness, the god of evil is his god. I never expected to hear such objections raised among honorable men; and men to be Senators should be honorable men. I never expected to hear such things in this hall; and I rose simply to say that such sentiments were to be condemned, and must receive my condemnation, now and here; and if it amounts to a rebuke, I trust it may be a rebuke."

The Senate adjourned, with the understanding that the vote should be taken on the following day. In the morning hour on that day, as the States were called for the purpose of giving Senators an opportunity of introducing petitions or resolutions, Mr. Lane, of Kansas, presented a joint resolution providing for admitting Senators and Representatives from the States lately in insurrection. This bill, emanating from a Republican Senator, who professed to have framed it as an embodiment of the President's policy, was evidently designed to have an influence upon the action of the Senate upon the Civil Rights Bill. It proposed that Senators and Representatives from the late rebellious States should be admitted into Congress whenever it should appear that they had annulled their ordinances of secession, ratified the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery, repudiated all rebel debts, recognized the debts of the United States, and extended the elective franchise to all male persons of color residing in the State, over twenty-one years of age, who can read and write, and who own real estate valued at not less than two hundred and fifty dollars.

As a reason for introducing this measure, Mr. Lane, of Kansas, remarked: "I have been laboring for months to harmonize the President of the United States with the majority on the floor of Congress. I thought yesterday that there was a hope of securing such a result. It did seem that some of the members of this body were disposed to harmonize with the President. I proposed to go very far yesterday to secure that harmony. But while pursuing this course, we were awakened by one of the most vindictive assaults ever made upon any official, by either friend or opponent, from the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Wade]--an assault upon my personal friend, a man who for two years sat side by side with me here, whom I learned to respect and admire for his pluck, his ability, and integrity, and to love for his manly virtues; a man whom I originally selected as the candidate of the Republican party for the second office within the gift of that party; a man whom I urged on the Republican convention at Baltimore as their candidate; a man whose election I did my utmost to secure against the efforts of the Senator from Ohio. In the most critical moment of that political campaign, an assault was made on our presidential candidate in the same spirit evinced by him yesterday in his attack upon the President. I defended the candidate of the Republican party against that assault, and I defend the President of the Republican party against the assault of yesterday.

"'A despot!' 'A dictator!' In what? In seeking to reconstruct the rebellious States in violation of the wishes of the Congress of the United States? When Mr. Johnson took his seat in the presidential chair, I ask you, sir, what had Congress done? The people of the United States had done this: Mr. Lincoln had marked out the policy of reconstruction, since adopted by Mr. Johnson, and the people of the United States, the party to which the Senator from Ohio and myself belong, indorsed by triumphant majorities that very reconstruction policy. A despot for proposing, in violation of the wishes of the Congress of the United States, to reconstruct the insurrectionary States upon the theory expressed in that joint resolution annulling the ordinances of secession, ratifying the amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery, repudiating the Confederate debt, indorsing the national debt, and extending suffrage to all colored men who can read the Constitution of the United States and sign their names, and to all colored men owning and paying taxes upon $250 worth of property!

"Mr. President, I am not as conversant with the constituency of the Senator from Ohio as he is, but I venture the assertion that outside of New England there is not a single Northern State in this Union but will by a majority vote to indorse the policy of reconstruction advised by President Johnson and expressed in that joint resolution. You can not carry before the people of this country suffrage to the unqualified black man. You can not find a State in this Union outside of New England, in my judgment, that will indorse that policy. Restrict it to a qualification clause, as the President of the United States recommends, and you can carry the Republican Union party every-where, and with unanimity.

"The President of the United States 'a despot' for exercising a constitutional right in vetoing a bill passed by Congress! Mr. President, had the Senator from Ohio occupied the position which is occupied by President Johnson, in my judgment, he would have vetoed the Civil Rights Bill. 'A despot!' What is the exercise of the veto power? It amounts merely to a vote to reconsider, with the lights given in his reasons for the veto. When before has the exercise of a constitutional right justified a political friend of the President of the United States in denouncing that President as a despot and a dictator? He has been and is now, in my judgment, as anxious to harmonize the difficulties in the Union party as any Senator upon this floor. If he was met in the same spirit, that party would be reunited and this Union would be restored. His advances are met by insult; his advances are met by denunciation from the leader of the Republican party upon this floor in language without a parallel. Mr. President, so far as I am concerned, I propose to-day and hereafter to take my position alongside the President of the Republican party, and stand there unflinchingly so long as he remains faithful to the principles of that party, defending him against the Senator from Ohio as I defended his predecessor against the same Senator."

Mr. Lane then expressed his desire that his proposition should lie upon the table and be printed. An order having been entered to that effect, Mr. Wade addressed the Senate. He remarked: "It is said I made an attack on the President of the United States. As a Senator upon this floor, I care no more about the opinions of the President of the United States than I do about those of any respectable Senator upon this floor, or any Senator on this floor. Who is your President, that every man must bow to his opinion? Why, sir, we all know him; he is no stranger to this body. We have measured him; we know his height, his depth, his length, his breadth, his capacity, and all about him. Do you set him up as a paragon and declare here on the floor of this Senate that you are going to make us all bow down before him? Is that the idea? You [to Mr. Lane, of Kansas,] are going to be his apologist and defender in whatever he may propose to do! Is that the understanding of the Senator from Kansas?

"I do not believe that his constituents will be quite satisfied with so broad a declaration, that he is to wear any man's collar, and follow him wherever he may go. Did I use harsh language toward the President yesterday? All that I said I stand by to-day and forever. What was the question upon which I made those observations, and what has been the opinion of the President heretofore? what has been his action since? Here are three million people, our friends, friends to the Government, who generously came forward in its difficulty, and helped us throughout the war, sacrificed their blood and their lives to maintain the issue on our side, and who were faithful beyond all men that were ever faithful before, to us during the whole of the difficulty, every-where assisting our brave soldiers in the field, laying down their lives to maintain our principles, and ministering in every way to the misfortunes of our brave men whenever they fell into the hands of those worse than savages with whom we were warring; and now these men are laboring, are under one of the most frightful despotisms that ever settled down upon the heads of mankind. Three million people are exposed to the outrages, the insolence, the murder of those worse than savages, their former masters, murdered as we hear every day, oppressed every-where, their rights taken away, their manhood trampled under foot; and Congress, under the Constitution of the United States, endeavors to extend to them some little protection, and how are we met here? Every attempt of your Moses has been to trample them down worse, and to throw every obstruction in the way of any relief that could be proposed by Congress. He has from all appearances become their inveterate and relentless foe, making violent war upon any member of Congress who dares raise his voice or give his vote in favor of any measure having for its object the amelioration of the condition of these poor people. Talk to me about the President being their friend! When did it ever happen before that a great measure of relief to suffering humanity on as broad a scale as this was met by the stern veto of the President of the United States, and without being able when he undertakes to make his obstruction to our measures to designate a single clause of the Constitution that he pretends has been violated.

"Yesterday what was the issue? I was charged with great cruelty on this floor, because I was unwilling to wait for recruits to be brought in here for the purpose of overthrowing the ground we had taken upon this important question whether these poor people shall have relief or not. Now, I wish to say that I am willing to extend courtesy to our old associates on this floor under other circumstances; but when you extend this kind of courtesy to them, the result is death and destruction to three million people, trampled under the feet of their former masters. My courtesy is extended to those poor men, and I would not wait a moment that their enemies may be brought in here in order to prevent our doing any thing for their relief, joining with the President, who is determined, if we may judge by his acts, that no measure having for its object any relief shall be extended to them.

"Did you hear the fact stated here the other day, that bills were drawn with a view to escape the anathemas of your President, and were exhibited to him, and he asked 'if he had any objection to them to look them over well, because if we can, consistent with the object aimed at, make them clear of any objection you may have, we will do it?'

"I said, sir, that he seemed to have meditated a controversy with Congress from the beginning, and he has. He has treated our majorities as hostile to the people; two thirds of both branches of Congress have been treated by him as mere factionists, disunionists, enemies to the country, bent upon its destruction, bargaining with the enemy to destroy the Government. This is the way the President has treated Congress, and every bill they have passed, which promised any relief to the men whom we are bound to protect, has been trampled under the Executive heel; and even when members of this body did what I say they ought not to have done--for I do not approve of my brother Trumbull's going up to the President, when he has a measure pending here as a Senator, to ask the President, in the first place, whether he will approve of it or not; even when he was asked if he objected to this measure, and made no objection, he still undertakes to veto it.

"If Congress should recede from the position they have taken to claim jurisdiction over this great question of reädmitting these States, from that hour they surrender all the power that the Constitution places in their hands and that they were sworn to support, and they are the mere slaves of an accidental Executive; of a man who formerly associated with us upon this floor; who was no more infallible than the rest of us poor mortals; and yet the moment, by death or accident, he is placed in the executive chair, it would seem as if some Senators believed him to be endowed with superhuman wisdom, and ought to be invested with all the powers of this Government; that Congress ought to get on their knees before him, and take his insults and his dictation without resentment and without even an attempt to resist. Some States may send such instrumentalities here, but God knows some will not; and I pity those that do, for they would hold their freedom on a very uncertain tenure.

"Some gentlemen may be patient under the charge of treason, perhaps the more so because treason is becoming popular in this day; but, sir, I am a little too old-fashioned to be charged by the executive branch of this Government as a traitor on the floor of Congress, and not resent it. I do not care whether he be King or President that insinuates that I am a disunionist or traitor, standing upon the same infamous platform with the traitors of the South; I will not take it from any mortal man, high or low, without repelling the charge. If any man here is tame enough to do it, he is too tame to be the Senator of a proud-spirited people, conscious of their own freedom. I claim to be their representative, and they will censure me if they do not like my doctrine.

"And now, Mr. President, I wish to make an appeal to those great, patriotic statesmen on this floor, who, by their love of principle, by their unswerving honesty, unseduced by the blandishments of executive power, unawed by threats of violence, stand here to defend the rights of the people upon this floor, and will stand here forever. I say to you Senators, we, the majority who are stigmatized as traitors, are the only barrier to-day between this nation and anarchy and despotism. If we give way, the hope of this nation is lost by the recreancy--yea, sir, I will say the treachery--of a man who betrayed our confidence, got into power, and has gone into the camp of the enemy, and joined those who never breathed a breath of principle in common with us."

Mr. Lane replied: "I stated that the party to which I belong nominated the present President of the United States and elected him, and that as long as he fought within our lines and remained in our party, I would endeavor to defend him upon this floor against all unjust assaults. After making that statement, the Senator from Ohio, forgetting the position he occupies, has suggested that I have taken upon myself the collar of the President of the United States. I hurl the suggestion in the teeth of the Senator from Ohio as unworthy a Senator. I wear a collar! The pro-slavery party of the United States, backed by a Democratic Administration, sustained and supported by the army of the United States, could not fasten a collar upon the handful of Kansas squatters of whom I had the honor to be the leader. The gallant fight made in this Senate-chamber by the Senator from Ohio, aided by the Senators from Massachusetts and other Senators, would have been of but little avail had it not been for that other fight that was made upon the prairies of Kansas under the lead of your humble speaker. I wear a collar! Indicted for treason by a pro-slavery grand jury, hunted from State to State by a writ founded upon that indictment for treason, and $100,000 offered for my head! Jim Lane wear a collar! Wherever he is known, that charge will be denounced as false by both friends and enemies."

Mr. Brown, of Missouri, made a short speech, in which he set forth the position of Mr. Lane, of Kansas, on questions previously before the Senate, showing their inconsistency with some of his recent remarks.

Mr. Doolittle next delivered a speech, in the course of which he called attention to a bill which he had drawn "to provide appropriate legislation to enforce article thirteen of the Amendments to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in the United States." His object in presenting this bill was to "avoid the objections raised by men not only in this body, but in the other house, and the objections raised by the President of the United States, to the bill now pending."

He endeavored to explain his position and changes of opinion upon the Civil Rights: "While this measure was upon its passage, I took no part in its discussion except upon a single point in relation to the Indian tribes. The bill passed, and the final vote was taken when I was not present in the Senate; but it was not under such circumstances that, had I been here, I should not have voted for the bill. I have no doubt that if I had been present I should have voted for it. My attention was not drawn very earnestly to the consideration of all the provisions of this bill until the bill had passed from Senate and had gone to the House of Representatives, when the speeches of Mr. Bingham, of Ohio, and of Mr. Delano, of Ohio, both able and distinguished lawyers of that State, arrested my attention and called me very carefully to the consideration of the great questions which are involved in the bill. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives; it went to the President. From the fact that it was not signed and returned to this body at once, and from all I heard, I became satisfied that, at least, if the bill was not to be returned with objections, it was being withheld for most earnest and serious consideration by the Executive.

"Then, Mr. President, it was, in view of all that had occurred, what had been said by gentlemen in whom I had the utmost--I may say unbounded--confidence, that I began to look into this measure and to study it for myself. It is not my purpose now to go into a discussion of the provisions of this bill any further than to say that there are provisions in it upon which the judgments of the best patriots, the best jurists, the most earnest men disagree. There are men, in whom I have entire confidence, who maintain that all its provisions are within the purview of the Constitution; there are others in whom I have confidence, and equal confidence, who maintain directly the contrary; and this has brought me seriously to consider whether there be no common ground upon which friends can stand and stand together. Sir, I may have failed to find it; but if I have, it is not because I have not most earnestly sought for it with some days of study and most earnest reflection. I have endeavored to put upon paper what I believe would carry this constitutional provision into effect and yet would be a common ground on which we could unite without violating the conscientious convictions of any."

In concluding his remarks, Mr. Doolittle referred to instructions received by him from the Legislature of Wisconsin: "Mr. President, I have received, in connection with my colleague, a telegraphic dispatch from the Governor of the State of Wisconsin, which I have no doubt is correct, although I have not seen the resolution which is said to have been passed by the Legislature, in which it is stated that the Legislature has passed a resolution instructing the Senators in Congress from Wisconsin to vote for the passage of the Senate bill commonly known as the Civil Rights Bill, the veto of the President to the contrary notwithstanding. I have already stated, from my stand-point, the reasons why, in my judgment, I can not do it; I have stated them freely and frankly, and, as a matter of course, I expect to abide the consequences. I know that it has sometimes been said to me, by those, too, in whom I would have confidence, that for me, under circumstances like these, not to follow the instructions of the Legislature of my State, would be to terminate my political life. Sir, be it so. I never held or aspired to any other office politically than the one I now hold; and God knows, if I know my own heart, if I can see this Union restored after this gigantic war which has put down the rebellion, and to which I have lent my support, I shall be satisfied. I do not desire to remain in political life beyond that hour. There is nothing in that which will have the slightest influence whatever upon me. The duty which I owe to myself, the duty which I owe to the country, the duty which I owe to the union of these States, and the preservation of the rights of the States, and the duty which I owe to the great Republican party, which I would still desire to save, prompts me to pursue the course which I now do."

Mr. Garrett Davis, of Kentucky, addressed the Senate in a long speech, of which the following is the closing paragraph: "Public justice is often slow, but generally sure. Think you that the people will look on with folded arms and stolid indifference and see you subvert their Constitution and liberties, and on their ruins erect a grinding despotism. No; erelong they will rise up with earthquake force and fling you from power and place. I commend to your serious meditation these words: 'Go tell Sylla that you saw Caius Marius sitting upon the ruins of Carthage!'"

Mr. Saulsbury thought a revolution would result from the passage of this bill: "In my judgment the passage of this bill is the inauguration of revolution--bloodless, as yet, but the attempt to execute it by the machinery and in the mode provided in the bill will lead to revolution in blood. It is well that the American people should take warning in time and set their house in order, but it is utterly impossible that the people of this country will patiently entertain and submit to this great wrong. I do not say this because I want a revolution; Heaven knows we have had enough of bloodshed; we have had enough of strife; there has been enough of mourning in every household; there are too many new-made graves on which the grass has not yet grown for any one to wish to see the renewal of strife; but, sir, attempt to execute this act within the limits of the States of this Union, and, in my judgment, this country will again be plunged into all the horrors of civil war."

Mr. McDougall said: "I agree with the Senator from Delaware that this measure is revolutionary in its character. The majority glory in their giant power, but they ought to understand that it is tyrannous to exercise that power like a giant. A revolution now is moving onward; it has its center in the North-east. A spirit has been radiating out from there for years past as revolutionary as the spirit that went out from Charleston, South Carolina, and perhaps its consequences will be equally fatal, for when that revolutionary struggle comes it will not be a war between the North and its power and the slaveholding population of the South; it will be among the North men themselves, they who have lived under the shadows of great oaks, and seen the tall pine-trees bend."

At the conclusion of the remarks by the Senator from California, the vote was taken, with the following result;

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

NAYS--Messrs. Buckalew, Cowan, Davis, Doolittle, Guthrie, Hendricks, Johnson, Lane of Kansas, McDougall, Nesmith, Norton, Riddle, Saulsbury, Van Winkle, and Wright--15.

ABSENT--Mr. Dixon.

The President pro tempore then made formal announcement of the result: "The yeas being 33 and the nays 15, the bill has passed the Senate by the requisite constitutional majority, notwithstanding the objection of the President to the contrary."

On the 9th of April, 1866, three days after the passage of the bill in the Senate, the House of Representatives proceeded to its consideration. The bill and the President's Veto Message having been read, Mr. Wilson, of Iowa, demanded the previous question on the passage of the bill, the objections of the President to the contrary notwithstanding, and gave his reasons for so doing: "Mr. Speaker, the debate which occurred on this bill occupied two weeks of the time of this House. Some forty speeches were made, and the debate was not brought to a close until all had been heard who expressed a desire to speak upon the bill. At the close of that debate, the bill was passed by more than two-thirds of this House. It has been returned to us with the objections of the President to its becoming a law. I do not propose to reöpen the discussion of this measure; I am disposed to leave the close of this debate to the President by the message which has just been read. I ask the friends of this great measure to answer the argument and statements of that message by their votes."

The vote was finally taken on the question, "Shall this bill pass, notwithstanding the objections of the President?" The following is the record of the vote:

YEAS--Messrs. Alley, Allison, Delos R. Ashley, James M. Ashley, Baker, Baldwin, Banks, Barker, Baxter, Beaman, Benjamin, Bidwell, Boutwell, Brandegee, Bromwell, Broomall, Buckland, Bundy, Reader W. Clarke, Sidney Clarke, Cobb, Colfax, Conkling, Cook, Cullom, Darling, Davis, Dawes, Defrees, Delano, Deming, Dixon, Dodge, Donnelly, Eckley, Eggleston, Eliot, Farnsworth, Farquhar, Ferry, Garfield, Grinnell, Griswold, Hale, Abner C. Harding, Hart, Hayes, Henderson, Higby, Hill, Holmes, Hooper, Hotchkiss, Asahel W. Hubbard, Chester D. Hubbard, John H. Hubbard, James R. Hubbell, Hulburd, James Humphrey, Ingersoll, Jenckes, Kasson, Kelley, Kelso, Ketcham, Laflin, George V. Lawrence, William Lawrence, Loan, Longyear, Lynch, Marston, Marvin, McClurg, McIndoe, McKee, McRuer, Mercur, Miller, Moorhead, Morrill, Morris, Moulton, Myers, Newell, O'Neill, Orth, Paine, Patterson, Perham, Pike, Plants, Pomeroy, Price, Alexander H. Rice, John H. Rice, Rollins, Sawyer, Schenck, Scofield, Shellabarger, Spalding, Starr, Stevens, Thayer, Francis Thomas, John L. Thomas, Trowbridge, Upson, Van Aernam, Burt Van Horn, Robert T. Van Horn, Ward, Elihu B. Washburne, Henry D. Washburn, William B. Washburn, Welker, Wentworth, James F. Wilson, Stephen F. Wilson, Windom, and Woodbridge--122.

NAYS--Messrs. Ancona, Bergen, Boyer, Coffroth, Dawson, Dennison, Eldridge, Finck, Glossbrenner, Aaron Harding, Harris, Hogan, Edwin N. Hubbell, James M. Humphrey, Latham, Le Blond, Marshall, McCullough, Niblack, Nicholson, Noell, Phelps, Radford, Samuel J. Randall, William H. Randall, Raymond, Ritter, Rogers, Ross, Rosseau, Shanklin, Sitgreaves, Smith, Strouse, Taber, Taylor, Thornton, Trimble, Whaley, Winfield, and Wright--41.

NOT VOTING--Messrs. Ames, Anderson, Bingham, Blaine, Blow, Chanler, Culver, Driggs, Dumont, Goodyear, Grider, Demas Hubbard, Johnson, Jones, Julian, Kerr, Kuykendall, Sloan, Stilwell, Warner, and Williams--21.

The Speaker then made the following announcement: "The yeas are 122, and the nays 41. Two-thirds of the House having, upon this reconsideration, agreed to the passage of the bill, and it being certified officially that a similar majority of the Senate, in which the bill originated, also agreed to its passage, I do, therefore, by the authority of the Constitution of the United States, declare that this bill, entitled 'An act to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and furnish the means of their vindication,' has become a law."

This announcement was followed by prolonged applause on the floor of the House and among the throng of spectators in the galleries.

The following is the form in which the great measure so long pending became a law of the land:

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign Power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right in every State and Territory in the United States to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.

"SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any inhabitant of any State or Territory to the deprivation of any right secured or protected by this act, or to different punishment, pains, or penalties on account of such person having at any time been held in a condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, or by reason of his color or race, than is prescribed for the punishment of white persons, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $1,000, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, in the discretion of the court.

"SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the district courts of the United States, within their respective districts, shall have, exclusively of the courts of the several States, cognizance of all crimes and offenses committed against the provisions of this act, and also, concurrently with the circuit courts of the United States, of all causes, civil and criminal, affecting persons who are denied or can not enforce in the courts or judicial tribunals of the State or locality where they may be, any of the rights secured to them by the first section of this act; and if any suit or prosecution, civil or criminal, has been or shall be commenced in any State court against any such person, for any cause whatsoever, or against any officer, civil or military, or other person, for any arrest or imprisonment, trespasses or wrongs, done or committed by virtue or under color of authority derived from this act or the act establishing a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees, and all acts amendatory thereof, or for refusing to do any act upon the ground that it would be inconsistent with this act, such defendant shall have the right to remove such cause for trial to the proper district or circuit court in the manner prescribed by the 'Act relating to habeas corpus and regulating judicial proceedings in certain cases,' approved March 3, 1863, and all acts amendatory thereof. The jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters hereby conferred on the district and circuit courts of the United States shall be exercised and enforced in conformity with the laws of the United States, so far as such laws are suitable to carry the same into effect; but in all cases where such laws are not adapted to the object, or are deficient in the provisions necessary to furnish suitable remedies and punish offenses against law, the common law, as modified and changed by the constitution and statutes of the States wherein the court having jurisdiction of the cause, civil or criminal, is held, so far as the same is not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States, shall be extended to and govern said courts in the trial and disposition of such cause, and, if of a criminal nature, in the infliction of punishment on the party found guilty.

"SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That the district attorneys, marshals, and deputy-marshals of the United States, the commissioners appointed by the circuit and territorial courts of the United States, with powers of arresting, imprisoning, or bailing offenders against the laws of the United States, the officers and agents of the Freedmen's Bureau, and every other officer who may be specially empowered by the President of the United States, shall be, and they are hereby, specially authorized and required, at the expense of the United States, to institute proceedings against all and every person who shall violate the provisions of this act, and cause him or them to be arrested and imprisoned, or bailed, as the case may be, for trial before such court of the United States, or territorial court, as by this act has cognizance of the offense. And with a view to affording reasonable protection to all persons in their constitutional rights of equality before the law, without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, and to the prompt discharge of the duties of this act, it shall be the duty of the circuit courts of the United States and the superior courts of the Territories of the United States, from time to time, to increase the number of commissioners, so as to afford a speedy and convenient means for the arrest and examination of persons charged with a violation of this act. And such commissioners are hereby authorized and required to exercise and discharge all the powers and duties conferred on them by this act, and the same duties with regard to offenses created by this act, as they are authorized by law to exercise with regard to other offenses against the laws of the United States.

"SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of all marshals and deputy-marshals to obey and execute all warrants and precepts issued under the provisions of this act, when to them directed; and should any marshal or deputy-marshal refuse to receive such warrant or other process when tendered, or to use all proper means diligently to execute the same, he shall, on conviction thereof, be fined in the sum of $1,000, to the use of the person upon whom the accused is alleged to have committed the offense. And the better to enable the said commissioners to execute their duties faithfully and efficiently, in conformity with the Constitution of the United States and the requirements of this act, they are hereby authorized and empowered, within their counties respectively, to appoint, in writing, under their hands, any one or more suitable persons, from time to time, to execute all such warrants and other process as may be issued by them in the lawful performance of their respective duties; and the persons so appointed to execute any warrant or process as aforesaid, shall have authority to summon and call to their aid the bystanders or the posse comitatus of the proper county, or such portion of the land and naval forces of the United States, or the militia, as may be necessary to the performance of the duty with which they are charged, and to insure a faithful observance of the clause of the Constitution which prohibits slavery, in conformity with the provisions of this act; and said warrants shall run and be executed by said officers anywhere in the State or Territory within which they are issued.

"SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly and willfully obstruct, hinder, or prevent any officer, or other person, charged with the execution of any warrant or process issued under the provisions of this act, or any person or persons lawfully assisting him or them, from arresting any person for whose apprehension such warrant or process may have been issued, or shall rescue or attempt to rescue such person from the custody of the officer, other person or persons, or those lawfully assisting as aforesaid, when so arrested pursuant to the authority herein given and declared, or who shall aid, abet, or assist any person so arrested as aforesaid, directly or indirectly, to escape from the custody of the officer or other person legally authorized as aforesaid, or shall harbor or conceal any person for whose arrest a warrant or process shall have been issued as aforesaid, so as to prevent his discovery and arrest after notice or knowledge of the fact that a warrant has been issued for the apprehension of such person, shall, for either of said offenses, be subject to a fine not exceeding $1,000, and imprisonment not exceeding six months, by indictment and conviction before the district court of the United States for the district in which said offense may have been committed, or before the proper court of criminal jurisdiction, if committed within any one of the organized Territories of the United States.

"SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That the district attorneys, the marshals, the deputies, and the clerks of the said district and territorial courts shall be paid for their services the like fees as may be allowed to them for similar services in other cases; and in all cases where the proceedings are before a commissioner, he shall be entitled to a fee of ten dollars in full for his services in each case, inclusive of all services incident to such arrest and examination. The person or persons authorized to execute the process to be issued by such commissioners for the arrest of offenders against the provisions of this act, shall be entitled to a fee of five dollars for each person he or they may arrest and take before any such commissioner as aforesaid, with such other fees as may be deemed reasonable by such commissioner for such other additional services as may be necessarily performed by him or them, such as attending at the examination, keeping the prisoner in custody, and providing him with food and lodging during his detention, and until the final determination of such commissioner, and in general for performing such other duties as may be required in the premises; such fees to be made up in conformity with the fees usually charged by the officers of the courts of justice within the proper district or county, as near as may be practicable, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States on the certificate of the judge of the district within which the arrest is made, and to be recoverable from the defendant as part of the judgment in case of conviction.

"SEC. 8. And be it further enacted, That whenever the President of the United States shall have reason to believe that offenses have been or are likely to be committed against the provisions of this act within any judicial district, it shall be lawful for him, in his discretion, to direct the judge, marshal, and district attorney of such district to attend at such place within the district, and for such time as he may designate, for the purpose of the more speedy arrest and trial of persons charged with a violation of this act; and it shall be the duty of every judge or other officer, when any such requisition shall be received by him, to attend at the place, and for the time therein designated.

"SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, or such person as he may empower for that purpose, to employ such part of the land or naval forces of the United States, or of the militia, as shall be necessary to prevent the violation and enforce the due execution of this act.

"SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That upon all questions of law arising in any cause under the provisions of this act a final appeal may be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States."

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XII. THE SECOND FREEDMEN'S BUREAU BILL BECOMES A LAW

The Discovery of the Majority -- The Senate Bill -- The House Bill -- Its Provisions -- Passage of the Bill -- Amendment and Passage in the Senate -- Committee of Conference -- The Amendments as Accepted -- The Bill as Passed -- The Veto -- The Proposition of a Democrat Accepted -- Confusion in Leadership -- Passage of the Bill over the Veto -- It Becomes a Law.

Congress having succeeded in placing the Civil Rights Bill in the statute-book in spite of Executive opposition, was not disposed to allow other legislation which was regarded as important to go by default. The disposition of the President, now plainly apparent, to oppose all legislation which the party that had elevated him to office might consider appropriate to the condition of the rebel States, the majority in Congress discovered that, if they would make progress in the work before them, they must be content to do without Executive approval. The defection of the President from the principles of the party which had elected him, so far from dividing and destroying that party, had rather given it consolidation and strength. After the veto of the Civil Rights Bill, a very few members of the Senate and House of Representatives who had been elected as Republicans adhered to the President, but the most of those who had wavered stepped forward into the ranks of the "Radicals," as they were called, and a firm and invincible "two-thirds" moved forward to consummate legislation which they deemed essential to the interests of the nation.

So fully convinced were the majority that some effective legislation for the freedmen should be consummated, that two days after the final vote in which the former bill failed to pass over the veto, Senator Wilson introduced a bill "to continue in force the Bureau for the relief of Freedmen and Refugees," which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Military Affairs.

The bill, however, which subsequently became a law, originated in the House of Representatives. In that branch of Congress was a Special Committee on the Freedmen, who were able to give more immediate and continuous attention to that class of people than could committees such as those of the Judiciary and Military Affairs, having many other subjects to consider.

The Committee on the Freedmen, having given much time and attention to the perfection of a measure to meet the necessities of the case, on the 22d of May reported through their chairman, Mr. Eliot, "A bill to continue in force and amend an act entitled 'an act to establish a Bureau for the relief of Freedmen and Refugees, and for other purposes.'"

This bill provided for keeping in force the Freedmen's Bureau then in existence for two years longer. Some of the features to which the President had objected in his veto of the former bill had been modified and in part removed. In providing for the education of freedmen, the commissioner was restricted to cooperating so far with the charitable people of the country as to furnish rooms for school-houses and protection to teachers. The freedmen's courts were to be kept in existence till State legislation should conform itself to the Civil Rights Bill, and the disturbed relations of the States to the Union were restored. The President was required to reserve from sale public lands, not exceeding in all one million of acres, in Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana, to be assigned in parcels of forty acres and less to loyal refugees and freedmen.

One week after the introduction of the bill, its consideration was resumed. The question was taken without debate, and the bill passed by a vote of ninety-six in favor and thirty-two against the measure. Fifty-five members failed to vote.

On the day following, May 30th, the clerk of the House conveyed the bill to the Senate. It was there referred to the Committee on Military Affairs, as that committee already had before them seven bills relating to the same subject. Nearly a fortnight subsequently, the committee reported back to the Senate the House bill with certain amendments. The report of the committee, and the amendments proposed therein, could not be considered in the Senate until the lapse of another fortnight. On the 26th of June, the amendments devised by the committee were read in the Senate and adopted. Mr. Davis made a number of attempts to have the bill laid on the table or deferred to a subsequent day, but without success. Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Buckalew made ineffectual attempts to amend the bill by proposing to strike out important sections.

The Senate indulged in but little discussion of the bill or the amendments. The bill as amended finally passed the Senate by a vote of twenty-six for and six against the measure. The bill then went to the House for the concurrence of that body in the amendments passed by the Senate.

The Committee on the Freedmen made a report, which was adopted by the House, to non-concur in the amendments of the Senate. A Committee of Conference was appointed on the part of the Senate and the House. They, after consultation, made a report by which the Senate amendments, with some modifications, were adopted.

Mr. Eliot, Chairman of the Committee on the Freedmen, and of the Committee of Conference on the part of the House, at the request of a member, thus explained the amendments proposed by the Senate: "The first amendment which the Senate made to the bill, as it was passed by the House, was simply an enlargement of one of the sections of the House bill, which provided that the volunteer medical officers engaged in the medical department of the bureau might be continued, inasmuch as it was expected that the medical force of the regular army would be speedily reduced to the minimum, and in that case all the regular officers would be wanted in the service. It was therefore thought right that there should be some force connected with the Bureau of Refugees and Freedmen. The Senate enlarged the provisions of the House bill by providing that officers of the volunteer service now on duty might be continued as assistant commissioners and other officers, and that the Secretary of War might fill vacancies until other officers could be detailed from the regular army. That is the substance of the first material amendment.

"The next amendment strikes out a portion of one of the sections of the House bill, which related to the officers who serve as medical officers of the bureau, because it was provided for in the amendment to which I have just referred.

"The next amendment strikes out from the House bill the section which set apart, reserved from sale, a million acres of land in the Gulf States. It may perhaps be recollected that when the bill was reported from the committee, I stated that, in case the bill which the House had then passed, and which was known as the Homestead Bill, and which was then before the Senate, should become a law, this section of the bill would not be wanted. The bill referred to has become a law, and this section five, providing for that reservation, has, therefore, been stricken from the bill.

"The next amendment made by the Senate was to strike out a section of the House bill which simply provided that upon application for restoration by the former owners of the land assigned under General Sherman's field order, the application should not be complied with. That section is stricken out and another substituted for it, which provides that certain lands which are now owned by the United States, having been purchased by the United States under tax commissioners' sales, shall be assigned in lots of twenty acres to freedmen who have had allotments under General Sherman's field order, at the price for which the lands were purchased by the United States; and not only that those freedmen should have such allotments, but that other freedmen who had had lots assigned to them under General Sherman's field order, and who may have become dispossessed of their land, should have assignments made to them of these lands belonging to the United States. I think the justice of that provision will strike every one. And it will be perhaps a merit in the eyes of many that it does not call upon the Treasury for the expenditure of any money. In the bill which was passed by the House, it will be recollected that there was a provision under which there should be purchased by the commissioner of the bureau enough public lands to be substituted for the lands at first assigned to freedmen. Instead of that, provision is made by which they can have property belonging to the United States which has come into its possession under tax sales, and where the titles have been made perfect by lapse of time.

"The next amendment of the Senate provides that certain lands which were purchased by the United States at tax sales, and which are now held by the United States, should be sold at prices not less than ten dollars an acre, and that the proceeds should be invested for the support of schools, without distinction of color or race, on the islands in the parishes of St. Helena and St. Luke. That is all the provision which was made for education.

"The only other material amendment made by the Senate gives to the commissioner of the bureau power to take property of the late Confederate States, held by them or in trust for them, and which is now in charge of the commissioner of the bureau, to take that property and devote it to educational purposes. The amendment further provides that when the bureau shall cease to by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in exist, such of the late so-called Confederate States as shall have made provision for education, without regard to color, should have the balance of money remaining on hand, to be divided among them in proportion to their population."

The vote followed soon after the remarks of Mr. Eliot, and the bill, as amended, passed the House of Representatives.

The following is the bill as it went to the President for his approval:

"AN ACT to continue in force and to amend 'An Act to establish a Bureau for the relief of Freedmen and Refugees,' and for other purposes.

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the act to establish a bureau for the relief of freedmen and refugees, approved March third, eighteen hundred and sixty-five, shall continue in force for the term of two years from and after the passage of this act.

"SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the supervision and care of said bureau shall extend to all loyal refugees and freedmen, so far as the same shall be necessary, to enable them, as speedily as practicable, to become self-supporting citizens of the United States, and to aid them in making the freedom conferred by proclamation of the commander-in-chief, by emancipation under the laws of States, and by constitutional amendment, available to them and beneficial to the republic.

"SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the President shall, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint two assistant commissioners, in addition to those authorized by the act to which this is an amendment, who shall give like bonds and receive the same annual salaries provided in said act; and each of the assistant commissioners of the bureau shall have charge of one district containing such refugees or freedmen, to be assigned him by the commissioner, with the approval of the President. And the commissioner shall, under the direction of the President, and so far as the same shall be, in his judgment, necessary for the efficient and economical administration of the affairs of the bureau, appoint such agents, clerks, and assistants as may be required for the proper conduct of the bureau. Military officers or enlisted men may be detailed for service and assigned to duty under this act; and the President may, if, in his judgment, safe and judicious so to do, detail from the army all the officers and agents of this bureau; but no officer so assigned shall have increase of pay or allowances. Each agent or clerk, not heretofore authorized by law, not being a military officer, shall have an annual salary of not less than five hundred dollars, nor more than twelve hundred dollars, according to the service required of him. And it shall be the duty of the commissioner, when it can be done consistently with public interest, to appoint, as assistant commissioners, agents, and clerks, such men as have proved their loyalty by faithful service in the armies of the Union during the rebellion. And all persons appointed to service under this act, and the act to which this is an amendment, shall be so far deemed in the military service of the United States as to be under the military jurisdiction and entitled to the military protection of the Government while in discharge of the duties of their office.

"SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That officers of the Veteran Reserve Corps or of the volunteer service, now on duty in the Freedmen's Bureau as assistant commissioners, agents, medical officers, or in other capacities, whose regiments or corps have been or may hereafter be mustered out of service, may be retained upon such duty as officers of said bureau, with the same compensation as is now provided by law for their respective grades; and the Secretary of War shall have power to fill vacancies until other officers can be detailed in their places without detriment to the public service.

"SEC. 5. And he it further enacted, That the second section of the act to which this is an amendment shall be deemed to authorize the Secretary of War to issue such medical stores or other supplies, and transportation, and afford such medical or other aid as may be needful for the purposes named in said section: Provided, That no person shall be deemed 'destitute,' 'suffering,' or 'dependent upon the Government for support,' within the meaning of this act, who is able to find employment, and could, by proper industry or exertion, avoid such destitution, suffering, or dependence.

"SEC. 6. Whereas, by the provisions of an act approved February sixth, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, entitled 'An act to amend an act entitled "An act for the collection of direct taxes in insurrectionary districts within the United States, and for other purposes," approved June seventh, eighteen hundred and sixty-two,' certain lands in the parishes of Saint Helena and Saint Luke, South Carolina, were bid in by the United States at public tax sales, and, by the limitation of said act, the time of redemption of said lands has expired; and whereas, in accordance with instructions issued by President Lincoln on the sixteenth day of September, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, to the United States direct tax commissioners for South Carolina, certain lands bid in by the United States in the parish of Saint Helena, in said State, were in part sold by the said tax commissioners to 'heads of families of the African race,' in parcels of not more than twenty acres to each purchaser; and whereas, under the said instructions, the said tax commissioners did also set apart as 'school-farms' certain parcels of land in said parish, numbered in their plats from one to sixty-three inclusive, making an aggregate of six thousand acres, more or less: Therefore, be it further enacted, That the sales made to 'heads of families of the African race,' under the instructions of President Lincoln to the United States direct tax commissioners for South Carolina, of date of September sixteenth, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, are hereby confirmed and established; and all leases which have been made to such 'heads of families' by said direct tax commissioners shall be changed into certificates of sale in all cases wherein the lease provides for such substitution; and all the lands now remaining unsold, which come within the same designation, being eight thousand acres, more or less, shall be disposed of according to said instructions.

"SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That all other lands bid in by the United States at tax sales, being thirty-eight thousand acres, more or less, and now in the hands of the said tax commissioners as the property of the United States, in the parishes of Saint Helena and Saint Luke, excepting the 'school-farms,' as specified in the preceding section, and so much as may be necessary for military and naval purposes at Hilton Head, Bay Point, and Land's End, and excepting also the city of Port Royal, on Saint Helena island, and the town of Beaufort, shall be disposed of in parcels of twenty acres, at one dollar and fifty cents per acre, to such persons, and to such only, as have acquired and are now occupying lands under and agreeably to the provisions of General Sherman's special field order, dated at Savannah, Georgia, January sixteenth, eighteen hundred and sixty-five; and the remaining lands, if any, shall be disposed of, in like manner, to such persons as had acquired lands agreeably to the said order of General Sherman, but who have been dispossessed by the restoration of the same to former owners: Provided, That the lands sold in compliance with the provisions of this and the preceding section shall not be alienated by their purchasers within six years from and after the passage of this act.

"SEC. 8. And be it further enacted, That the 'school-farms' in the parish of Saint Helena, South Carolina, shall be sold, subject to any leases of the same, by the said tax commissioners, at public auction, on or before the first day of January, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, at not less than ten dollars per acre; and the lots in the city of Port Royal, as laid down by the said tax commissioners, and the lots and houses in the town of Beaufort, which are still held in like manner, shall be sold at public auction; and the proceeds of said sales, after paying expenses of the surveys and sales, shall be invested in United States bonds, the interest of which shall be appropriated, under the direction of the commissioner, to the support of schools, without distinction of color or race, on the islands in the parishes of Saint Helena and Saint Luke.

"SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That the assistant commissioners for South Carolina and Georgia are hereby authorized to examine the claims to lands in their respective States which are claimed under the provisions of General Sherman's special field order, and to give each person having a valid claim a warrant upon the direct tax commissioners for South Carolina for twenty acres of land; and the said direct tax commissioners shall issue to every person, or to his or her heirs, but in no case to any assigns, presenting such warrant, a lease of twenty acres of land, as provided for in section seven, for the term of six years; but, at any time thereafter, upon the payment of a sum not exceeding one dollar and fifty cents per acre, the person holding such lease shall be entitled to a certificate of sale of said tract of twenty acres from the direct tax commissioner or such officer as may be authorized to issue the same; but no warrant shall be held valid longer than two years after the issue of the same.

"SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That the direct tax commissioners for South Carolina are hereby authorized and required, at the earliest day practicable, to survey the lands designated in section seven into lots of twenty acres each, with proper metes and bounds distinctly marked, so that the several tracts shall be convenient in form, and, as near as practicable, have an average of fertility and woodland; and the expense of such surveys shall be paid from the proceeds of sales of said lands, or, if sooner required, out of any moneys received for other lands on these islands, sold by the United States for taxes, and now in the hands of the direct tax commissioners.

"SEC. 11. And be it further enacted, That restoration of the lands now occupied by persons under General Sherman's special field order, dated at Savannah, Georgia, January sixteenth, eighteen hundred and sixty-five, shall not be made until after the crops of the present year shall have been gathered by the occupants of said lands, nor until a fair compensation shall have been made to them by the former owners of said lands, or their legal representatives, for all improvements or betterments erected or constructed thereon, and after due notice of the same being done shall have been given by the assistant commissioner.

"SEC. 12. And be it further enacted, That the commissioner shall have power to seize, hold, use, lease, or sell, all buildings and tenements, and any lands appertaining to the same, or otherwise, held under claim or title by the late so-called Confederate States, and any buildings or lands held in trust for the same by any person or persons, and to use the same or appropriate the proceeds derived therefrom to the education of the freed people; and whenever the bureau shall cease to exist, such of the late so-called Confederate States as shall have made provision for the education of their citizens, without distinction of color, shall receive the sum remaining unexpended of such sales or rentals, which shall be distributed among said States for educational purposes in proportion to their population.

"SEC. 13. And be it further enacted, That the commissioner of this bureau shall at all times coöperate with private benevolent associations of citizens in aid of freedmen, and with agents and teachers, duly accredited and appointed by them, and shall hire or provide by lease buildings for purposes of education whenever such associations shall, without cost to the Government, provide suitable teachers and means of instruction; and he shall furnish protection as may be required for the safe conduct of such schools.

"SEC. 14. And be it further enacted, That in every State or district where the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has been interrupted by the rebellion, and until the same shall be fully restored, and in every State or district whose constitutional relations to the Government have been practically discontinued by the rebellion, and until such State shall have been restored in such relations, and shall be duly represented in the Congress of the United States, the right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to have full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty, personal security, and the acquisition, enjoyment, and disposition of estate, real and personal, including the constitutional right to bear arms, shall be secured to and enjoyed by all the citizens of such State or district, without respect to race or color, or previous condition of slavery. And whenever in either of said States or districts the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has been interrupted by the rebellion, and until the same shall be fully restored, and until such State shall have been restored in its constitutional relations to the Government, and shall be duly represented in the Congress of the United States, the President, shall, through the commissioner and the officers of the bureau, and under such rules and regulations as the President, through the Secretary of War, shall prescribe, extend military protection and have military jurisdiction over all cases and questions concerning the free enjoyment of such immunities and rights; and no penalty or punishment for any violation of law shall be imposed or permitted because of race or color, or previous condition of slavery, other or greater than the penalty or punishment to which white persons may be liable by law for the like offense. But the jurisdiction conferred by this section upon the officers of the bureau shall not exist in any State where the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has not been interrupted by the rebellion, and shall cease in every State when the courts of the State and the United States are not disturbed in the peaceable course of justice, and after such State shall be fully restored in its constitutional relations to the Government, and shall be duly represented in the Congress of the United States.

"SEC. 15. And be it further enacted, That the officers, agents, and employees of this bureau, before entering upon the duties of their office, shall take the oath prescribed in the first section of the act to which this is an amendment; and all acts or parts of acts inconsistent with the provisions of this act are hereby repealed.

On the 16th of July the President returned the bill to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, with his "objections thereto" in writing. The following is

THE VETO MESSAGE.

"To the House of Representatives:

"A careful examination of the bill passed by the two houses of Congress, entitled 'An act to continue in force and to amend "An act to establish a bureau for the relief of freedmen and refugees," and for other purposes,' has convinced me that the legislation which it proposes would not be consistent with the welfare of the country, and that it falls clearly within the reasons assigned in my message of the 19th of February last, returning without my signature a similar measure which originated in the Senate. It is not my purpose to repeat the objections which I then urged. They are yet fresh in your recollection, and can be readily examined as a part of the records of one branch of the National Legislature. Adhering to the principles set forth in that message, I now reäffirm them, and the line of policy therein indicated.

"The only ground upon which this kind of legislation can be justified is that of the war-making power. The act of which this bill was intended as amendatory was passed during the existence of the war. By its own provisions, it is to terminate within one year from the cessation of hostilities and the declaration of peace. It is therefore yet in existence, and it is likely that it will continue in force as long as the freedmen may require the benefit of its provisions. It will certainly remain in operation as a law until some months subsequent to the meeting of the next session of Congress, when, if experience shall make evident the necessity of additional legislation, the two houses will have ample time to mature and pass the requisite measures. In the mean time the questions arise, Why should this war measure be continued beyond the period designated in the original act? and why, in time of peace, should military tribunals be created to continue until each 'State shall be fully restored in its constitutional relations to the Government, and shall be duly represented in the Congress of the United States?' It was manifest with respect to the act approved March 3, 1865, that prudence and wisdom alike required that jurisdiction over all cases concerning the free enjoyment of the immunities and rights of citizenship, as well as the protection of person and property, should be conferred upon some tribunal in every State or district where the ordinary course of judicial proceeding was interrupted by the rebellion, and until the same should be fully restored. At that time, therefore, an urgent necessity existed for the passage of some such law. Now, however, war has substantially ceased; the ordinary course of judicial proceedings is no longer interrupted; the courts, both State and Federal, are in full, complete, and successful operation, and through them every person, regardless of race or color, is entitled to and can be heard. The protection granted to the white citizen is already conferred by law upon the freedman; strong and stringent guards, by way of penalties and punishments, are thrown around his person and property, and it is believed that ample protection will be afforded him by due process of law, without resort to the dangerous expedient of 'military tribunals,' now that the war has been brought to a close. The necessity no longer existing for such tribunals, which had their origin in the war, grave objections to their continuance must present themselves to the minds of all reflecting and dispassionate men. Independently of the danger in representative republics of conferring upon the military, in time of peace, extraordinary powers--so carefully guarded against by the patriots and statesmen of the earlier days of the republic, so frequently the ruin of governments founded upon the same free principle, and subversive of the rights and liberties of the citizen--the question of practical economy earnestly commends itself to the consideration of the law-making power. With an immense debt already burdening the incomes of the industrial and laboring classes, a due regard for their interests, so inseparably connected with the welfare of the country, should prompt us to rigid economy and retrenchment, and influence us to abstain from all legislation that would unnecessarily increase the public indebtedness. Tested by this rule of sound political wisdom, I can see no reason for the establishment of the 'military jurisdiction' conferred upon the officials of the bureau by the fourteenth section of the bill.

"By the laws of the United States, and of the different States, competent courts, Federal and State, have been established, and are now in full practical operation. By means of these civil tribunals ample redress is afforded for all private wrongs, whether to the person or to the property of the citizen, without denial or unnecessary delay. They are open to all, without regard to color or race. I feel well assured that it will be better to trust the rights, privileges, and immunities of the citizens to tribunals thus established, and presided over by competent and impartial judges, bound by fixed rules of law and evidence, and where the rights of trial by jury is guaranteed and secured, than to the caprice and judgment of an officer of the bureau, who, it is possible, may be entirely ignorant of the principles that underlie the just administration of the law. There is danger, too, that conflict of jurisdiction will frequently arise between the civil courts and these military tribunals, each having concurrent jurisdiction over the person and the cause of action--the one judicature administered and controlled by civil law, the other by the military. How is the conflict to be settled, and who is to determine between the two tribunals when it arises? In my opinion it is wise to guard against such conflict by leaving to the courts and juries the protection of all civil rights and the redress of all civil grievances.

"The fact can not be denied that since the actual cessation of hostilities many acts of violence--such, perhaps, as had never been witnessed in their previous history--have occurred in the States involved in the recent rebellion. I believe, however, that public sentiment will sustain me in the assertion that such deeds of wrong are not confined to any particular State or section, but are manifested over the entire country--demonstrating that the cause that produced them does not depend upon any particular locality, but is the result of the agitation and derangement incident to a long and bloody civil war. While the prevalence of such disorders must be greatly deplored, their occasional and temporary occurrence would seem to furnish no necessity for the extension of the bureau beyond the period fixed in the original act. Besides the objections which I have thus briefly stated, I may urge upon your consideration the additional reason that recent developments in regard to the practical operations of the bureau, in many of the States, show that in numerous instances it is used by its agents as a means of promoting their individual advantage, and that the freedmen are employed for the advancement of the personal ends of the officers instead of their own improvement and welfare--thus confirming the fears originally entertained by many that the continuation of such a bureau for any unnecessary length of time would inevitably result in fraud, corruption, and oppression.

"It is proper to state that in cases of this character investigations have been promptly ordered, and the offender punished, whenever his guilt has been satisfactorily established. As another reason against the necessity of the legislation contemplated by this measure, reference may be had to the 'Civil Rights Bill,' now a law of the land, and which will be faithfully executed as long as it shall remain unrepealed, and may not be declared unconstitutional by courts of competent jurisdiction. By that act, it is enacted 'that all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right in every State and Territory of the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, to be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.'

"By the provisions of the act full protection is afforded, through the district courts of the United States, to all persons injured, and whose privileges, as they are declared, are in any way impaired, and heavy penalties are denounced against the person who willfully violates the law. I need not state that that law did not receive my approval, yet its remedies are far preferable to those proposed in the present bill--the one being civil and the other military.

"By the sixth section of the bill herewith returned, certain proceedings by which the lands in the 'parishes of St. Helena and St. Luke, South Carolina,' were sold and bid in, and afterward disposed of by the tax commissioners, are ratified and confirmed. By the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh sections, provisions by law are made for the disposal of the lands thus acquired to a particular class of citizens. While the quieting of titles is deemed very important and desirable, the discrimination made in the bill seems objectionable, as does also the attempt to confer upon the commissioners judicial powers, by which citizens of the United States are to be deprived of their property in a mode contrary to that provision of the Constitution which declares that no person 'shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.' As a general principle, such legislation is unsafe, unwise, partial, and unconstitutional. It may deprive persons of their property who are equally deserving objects of the nation's bounty, as those whom, by this legislation, Congress seeks to benefit. The title to the land thus to be proportioned out to a favored class of citizens must depend upon the regularity of the tax sale under the law as it existed at the time of the sale, and no subsequent legislation can give validity to the rights thus acquired against the original claimants. The attention of Congress is therefore invited to a more mature consideration of the measures proposed in these sections of the bill.

"In conclusion, I again urge upon Congress the danger of class legislation, so well calculated to keep the public mind in a state of uncertain expectation, disquiet, and restlessness, and to encourage interested hopes and fears that the National Government will continue to furnish to classes of citizens, in the several States, means for support and maintenance, regardless of whether they pursue a life of indolence or labor, and regardless, also, of the constitutional limitations of the national authority in times of peace and tranquillity.

"The bill is herewith returned to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, for its final action.

"ANDREW JOHNSON.

"WASHINGTON, D. C., July 16, 1866."

As soon as the reading of this document had been completed, a motion was passed that it should be laid on the table and printed. Notice was given that it would be called up for the action of the House on the following day. Mr. Le Blond, a Democrat, suggested that it would be too long to wait until to-morrow to pass it over the veto, and without debate. The sooner action was taken, the more apparent would be the bad animus.

"I have no objection," said Mr. Eliot, taking him at his word. Others said, "There is no objection," whereupon the vote was reconsidered by which the matter was postponed.

The motion to reconsider the postponement was carried, and the previous question called, "Shall this bill become a law, the objections of the President to the contrary notwithstanding?"

"I do not see why we need be in such a hurry," said Mr. Rogers.

"One of your own side suggested that the vote better be taken now," replied Mr. Ashley.

"Well, he was not in earnest, of course," said Mr. Rogers, creating some mirth by the remark.

"I hope the gentleman will make no objection," said Mr. Le Blond, addressing his remark to Mr. Rogers.

Mr. Ward suggested that "the Democrats should choose their leader, and not confuse us in this way."

Without further parley, the vote was one hundred and four in the affirmative, thirty-three in the negative, and forty-five "not voting." The Speaker then announced, "Two-thirds having voted in the affirmative, the bill has, notwithstanding the objections of the President, again passed."

The Clerk of the House of Representatives immediately announced the action of that body to the Senate. Other business was at once laid aside, and the Veto Message was read in the Senate.

Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Saulsbury then addressed the Senate in support of the position of the President. The question being taken, thirty-three voted for and twelve against the bill. Thereupon the President pro tempore announced, "Two-thirds of this body have passed the bill, and it having been certified that two-thirds of the House of Representatives have voted for this bill, I now pronounce that this bill has become a law."

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XIII. FIRST WORDS ON RECONSTRUCTION

Responsibility of the Republican Party -- Its Power and Position -- Initiatory Step -- Mr. Stevens steaks for Himself -- Condition of the Rebel States -- Constitutional Authority under which Congress should act -- Estoppel -- What constitutes Congress -- The First Duty -- Basis of Representation -- Duty on Exports -- Two important Principles -- Mr. Raymond's Theory -- Rebel States still in the Union -- Consequences of the Radical Theory -- Conditions to be Required -- State Sovereignty -- Rebel Debt -- Prohibition of Slavery -- Two Policies contrasted -- Reply of Mr. Jenckes -- Difference in Terms, not in Substance -- Logic of the Conservatives leads to the Results of the Radicals.

Having traced the progress through Congress of the great measures relating to civil rights and protection of the freedmen, it is now proper to go back to an earlier period in this legislative history, and trace what was said and done upon a subject which, more than any other, awakened the interest and solicitude of the American people--the subject of Reconstruction.

The Republican party had a majority of more than one hundred in the House, and after all its losses, retained more than two thirds of the Senate. As a consequence of this great preponderance of power, the party possessing it was justly held responsible for the manner in which the country should pass the important political crisis consequent upon the termination of the war in the overthrow of the rebellion.

It became an important question for members of the Republican party in Congress to determine among themselves what line of policy they should pursue.

The appointment of the Joint Committee of Fifteen on Reconstruction, was every-where regarded by the constituents of the majority as a most happy initiatory step. The whole country listened with eagerness to hear what words would be spoken in Congress to give some clue to the course the committee would recommend. Words of no uncertain significance and weight were uttered at an early period in the session.

On the 18th of December, a fortnight after the opening of the session, Mr. Stevens announced his opinions on reconstruction with great boldness and distinctness. At the same time, seeing himself much in advance of many of his party, and fearing lest his opinions might alarm the less resolute, he declared: "I do not profess to speak their sentiments, nor must they be held responsible for them."

Mr. Stevens opened his speech with remarks on the condition of the rebel States. He said: "The President assumes, what no one doubts, that the late rebel States have lost their constitutional relations to the Union, and are incapable of representation in Congress, except by permission of the Government. It matters but little, with this admission, whether you call them States out of the Union, and now conquered territories, or assert that because the Constitution forbids them to do what they did do, that they are, therefore, only dead as to all national and political action, and will remain so until the Government shall breathe into them the breath of life anew and permit them to occupy their former position. In other words, that they are not out of the Union, but are only dead carcasses lying within the Union. In either case, it is very plain that it requires the action of Congress to enable them to form a State government and send Representatives to Congress. Nobody, I believe, pretends that with their old constitutions and frames of government they can be permitted to claim their old rights under the Constitution. They have torn their constitutional States into atoms, and built on their foundations fabrics of a totally different character. Dead men can not raise themselves. Dead States can not restore their own existence 'as it was.' Whose especial duty is it to do it? In whom does the Constitution place the power? Not in the judicial branch of Government, for it only adjudicates and does not prescribe laws. Not in the Executive, for he only executes and can not make laws. Not in the commander-in-chief of the armies, for he can only hold them under military rule until the sovereign legislative power of the conqueror shall give them law.

"There is fortunately no difficulty in solving the question. There are two provisions in the Constitution, under one of which the case must fall. The fourth article says: 'New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union.' In my judgment, this is the controlling provision in this case. Unless the law of nations is a dead letter, the late war between two acknowledged belligerents severed their original compacts, and broke all the ties that bound them together. The future condition of the conquered power depends on the will of the conqueror. They must come in as new States or remain as conquered provinces. Congress--the Senate and House of Representatives, with the concurrence of the President--is the only power that can act in the matter. But suppose, as some dreaming theorists imagine, that these States have never been out of the Union, but have only destroyed their State governments so as to be incapable of political action, then the fourth section of the fourth article applies, which says, 'The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.' Who is the United States? Not the judiciary; not the President; but the sovereign power of the people, exercised through their Representatives in Congress, with the concurrence of the Executive. It means the political Government--the concurrent action of both branches of Congress and the Executive. The separate action of each amounts to nothing either in admitting new States or guaranteeing republican governments to lapsed or outlawed States. Whence springs the preposterous idea that either the President, or the Senate, or the House of Representatives, acting separately, can determine the right of States to send members or Senators to the Congress of the Union?"

Mr. Stevens then cited authorities to prove that "if the so-called Confederate States of America were an independent belligerent, and were so acknowledged by the United States and by Europe, or had assumed and maintained an attitude which entitled them to be considered and treated as a belligerent, then, during such time, they were precisely in the condition of a foreign nation with whom we were at war; nor need their independence as a nation be acknowledged by us to produce that effect."

Having read from a number of authorities to support his position, Mr. Stevens continued: "After such clear and repeated decisions, it is something worse than ridiculous to hear men of respectable standing attempting to nullify the law of nations, and declare the Supreme Court of the United States in error, because, as the Constitution forbids it, the States could not go out of the Union in fact. A respectable gentleman was lately reciting this argument, when he suddenly stopped and said: 'Did you hear of that atrocious murder committed in our town? A rebel deliberately murdered a Government official.' The person addressed said, 'I think you are mistaken.' 'How so? I saw it myself.' 'You are wrong; no murder was or could be committed, for the law forbids it.'

"The theory that the rebel States, for four years a separate power and without representation in Congress, were all the time here in the Union, is a good deal less ingenious and respectable than the metaphysics of Berkeley, which proved that neither the world nor any human being was in existence. If this theory were simply ridiculous it could be forgiven; but its effect is deeply injurious to the stability of the nation. I can not doubt that the late Confederate States are out of the Union to all intents and purposes for which the conqueror may choose so to consider them."

Mr. Stevens further maintained that the rebel States should be adjudged out of the Union on the ground of estoppel. "They are estopped," said he, "both by matter of record and matter in pais. One of the first resolutions passed by seceded South Carolina in January, 1861, is as follows:

"Resolved, unanimously, That the separation of South Carolina from the Federal Union is final, and she has no further interest in the Constitution of the United States; and that the only appropriate negotiations between her and the Federal Government are as to their mutual relations as foreign States."

"Similar resolutions appear upon all their State and Confederate Government records. The speeches of their members of Congress, their generals and executive officers, and the answers of their Government to our shameful suings for peace, went upon the defiant ground that no terms would be offered or received except upon the prior acknowledgment of the entire and permanent independence of the Confederate States. After this, to deny that we have a right to treat them as a conquered belligerent, severed from the Union in fact, is not argument but mockery. Whether it be our interest to do so is the only question hereafter and more deliberately to be considered.

"But suppose these powerful but now subdued belligerents, instead of being out of the Union, are merely destroyed, and are now lying about, a dead corpse, or with animation so suspended as to be incapable of action, and wholly unable to heal themselves by any unaided movements of their own. Then they may fall under the provision of the Constitution which says, "the United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a republican form of government." Under that power, can the judiciary, or the President, or the commander-in-chief of the army, or the Senate or House of Representatives, acting separately, restore them to life and reädmit them into the Union? I insist that if each acted separately, though the action of each was identical with all the others, it would amount to nothing. Nothing but the joint action of the two houses of Congress and the concurrence of the President could do it. If the Senate admitted their Senators, and the House their members, it would have no effect on the future action of Congress. The Fortieth Congress might reject both. Such is the ragged record of Congress for the last four years."

He cited a decision of the Supreme Court to show that "it rests with Congress to decide what government is the established one in a State," and then remarked: "But Congress does not mean the Senate, or the House of Representatives, and President, all acting severally. Their joint action constitutes Congress. Hence a law of Congress must be passed before any new State can be admitted or any dead ones revived. Until then, no member can be lawfully admitted into either house. Hence, it appears with how little knowledge of constitutional law each branch is urged to admit members separately from these destroyed States. The provision that "each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members," has not the most distant bearing on this question. Congress must create States and declare when they are entitled to be represented. Then each house must judge whether the members presenting themselves from a recognized State possesses the requisite qualifications of age, residence, and citizenship, and whether the election and returns are according to law. The houses separately can judge of nothing else.

"It is obvious from all this, that the first duty of Congress is to pass a law declaring the condition of these outside or defunct States, and providing proper civil government for them. Since the conquest, they have been governed by martial law. Military rule is necessarily despotic, and ought not to exist longer than is absolutely necessary. As there are no symptoms that the people of these provinces will be prepared to participate in constitutional government for some years, I know of no arrangement so proper for them as territorial government. There they can learn the principles of freedom and eat the fruit of foul rebellion. Under such governments, while electing members to the territorial legislatures, they will necessarily mingle with those to whom Congress shall extend the right of suffrage. In territories Congress fixes the qualifications of electors, and I know of no better place nor better occasion for the conquered rebels and the conqueror to practice justice to all men and accustom themselves to make and obey equal laws."

Mr. Stevens proceeded to specify amendments to the Constitution which should be made before the late rebel States "would be capable of acting in the Union." The first of those amendments would be to change the basis of representation among the States from federal numbers to actual voters. After explaining the operation of this amendment, he depicted the consequences of reädmitting the Southern States without this guarantee. "With the basis unchanged," said he, "the eighty-three Southern members, with the Democrats that will in the best of times be elected from the North, will always give them the majority in Congress and in the Electoral College. They will, at the very first election, take possession of the White House and the halls of Congress. I need not depict the ruin that would follow. Assumption of the rebel debt or repudiation of the Federal debt would be sure to follow; the oppression of the freedmen, the reämendment of their State constitutions, and the reëstablishment of slavery would be the inevitable result."

Mr. Stevens thus set forth the importance of a proposed amendment to allow Congress to lay a duty on exports: "Its importance can not well be overstated. It is very obvious that for many years the South will not pay much under our internal revenue laws. The only article on which we can raise any considerable amount is cotton. It will be grown largely at once. With ten cents a pound export duty, it would be furnished cheaper to foreign markets than they could obtain it from any other part of the world. The late war has shown that. Two million bales exported, at five hundred pounds to the bale, would yield $100,000,000. This seems to be the chief revenue we shall ever derive from the South. Besides, it would be a protection to that amount to our domestic manufactures. Other proposed amendments--to make all laws uniform, to prohibit the assumption of the rebel debt--are of vital importance, and the only thing that can prevent the combined forces of copper-heads and secessionists from legislating against the interests of the Union whenever they may obtain an accidental majority.

"But this is not all that we ought to do before these inveterate rebels are invited to participate in our legislation. We have turned, or are about to turn, loose four million slaves, without a hut to shelter them or a cent in their pockets. The infernal laws of slavery have prevented them from acquiring an education, understanding the commonest laws of contract, or of managing the ordinary business of life. This Congress is bound to provide for them until they can take care of themselves. If we do not furnish them with homesteads, and hedge them around with protective laws; if we leave them to the legislation of their late masters, we had better have left them in bondage. Their condition would be worse than that of our prisoners at Andersonville. If we fail in this great duty now, when we have the power, we shall deserve and receive the execration of history and of all future ages.

"Two things are of vital importance: 1. So to establish a principle that none of the rebel States shall be counted in any of the amendments of the Constitution until they are duly admitted into the family of States by the law-making power of their conqueror. For more than six months the amendment of the Constitution abolishing slavery has been ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the States that acted on its passage by Congress, and which had Legislatures, or which were States capable of acting, or required to act, on the question.

"I take no account of the aggregation of whitewashed rebels, who, without any legal authority, have assembled in the capitals of the late rebel States and simulated legislative bodies. Nor do I regard with any respect the cunning by-play into which they deluded the Secretary of State by frequent telegraphic announcements that 'South Carolina had adopted the amendment,' 'Alabama has adopted the amendment, being the twenty-seventh State,' etc. This was intended to delude the people and accustom Congress to hear repeated the names of these extinct States as if they were alive, when, in truth, they have now no more existence than the revolted cities of Latium, two-thirds of whose people were colonized, and their property confiscated, and their rights of citizenship withdrawn by conquering and avenging Rome."

A second thing of vital importance to the stability of this republic, Mr. Stevens asserted to be "that it should now be solemnly decided what power can revive, recreate, and reinstate these provinces into the family of States, and invest them with the rights of American citizens. It is time that Congress should assert its sovereignty, and assume something of the dignity of a Roman senate. It is fortunate that the President invites Congress to take this manly attitude. After stating, with great frankness, in his able message, his theory--which, however, is found to be impracticable, and which, I believe, very few now consider tenable--he refers the whole matter to the judgment of Congress. If Congress should fail firmly and wisely to discharge that high duty, it is not the fault of the President."

Mr. Stevens closed his speech by setting the seal of reprobation upon a doctrine which is becoming too fashionable, that "this is a white man's Government." He uttered a severe rebuke to those who thus "mislead and miseducate the public mind."

There were some Republicans in Congress who disagreed with Mr. Stevens in his theory of the condition of the late rebel States, yet no one ventured immediately, to use a contemporary expression, "to take the Radical bull by the horns."

At length, three days afterward, Mr. Raymond, as a representative of the "Conservatives," ventured a reply. He thus set forth his theory as in opposition to that of Mr. Stevens: "I can not believe that these States have ever been out of the Union, or that they are now out of the Union. I can not believe that they ever have been, or are now, in any sense a separate power. If they were, sir, how and when did they become so? They were once States of this Union--that every one concedes; bound to the Union and made members of the Union by the Constitution of the United States. If they ever went out of the Union, it was at some specific time and by some specific act. Was it by the ordinance of secession? I think we all agree that an ordinance of secession passed by any State of this Union is simply a nullity, because it encounters in its practical operation the Constitution of the United States, which is the supreme law of the land. It could have no legal, actual force or validity. It could not operate to effect any actual change in the relations of the States adopting it to the National Government, still less to accomplish the removal of that State from the sovereign jurisdiction of the Constitution of the United States.

"Well, sir, did the resolutions of these States, the declarations of their officials, the speeches of members of their Legislatures, or the utterances of their press accomplish the result? Certainly not. They could not possibly work any change whatever in the relations of these States to the General Government. All their ordinances and all their resolutions were simply declarations of a purpose to secede. Their secession, if it ever took place, certainly could not date from the time when their intention to secede was first announced. After declaring that intention, they proceeded to carry it into effect. How? By war. By sustaining their purpose by arms against the force which the United States brought to bear against it. Did they sustain it? Were their arms victorious? If they were, then their secession was an accomplished fact; if not, it was nothing more than an abortive attempt, a purpose unfulfilled. This, then, is simply a question of fact, and we all know what the fact is. They did not succeed. They failed to maintain their ground by force of arms; in other words, they failed to secede.

"But the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] insists that they did secede, and that this fact is not in the least affected by the other fact that the Constitution forbids secession. He says that the law forbids murder, but that murders are, nevertheless, committed. But there is no analogy between the two cases. If secession had been accomplished; if these States had gone out, and overcome the armies that tried to prevent their going out, then the prohibition of the Constitution could not have altered the fact. In the case of murder the man is killed, and murder is thus committed in spite of the law. The fact of killing is essential to the committal of the crime, and the fact of going out is essential to secession. But in this case there was no such fact. I think I need not argue any further the position that the rebel States have never for one moment, by any ordinances of secession, or by any successful war, carried themselves beyond the rightful jurisdiction of the Constitution of the United States. They have interrupted for a time the practical enforcement and exercise of that jurisdiction; they rendered it impossible for a time for this Government to enforce obedience to its laws; but there has never been an hour when this Government, or this Congress, or this House, or the gentleman from Pennsylvania himself, ever conceded that those States were beyond the jurisdiction of the Constitution and laws of the United States."

Referring to the citation of authorities made by Mr. Stevens, Mr. Raymond maintained that they did not lend the "slightest countenance to the inference which was drawn from them."

In reply to the theory maintained by Mr. Stevens, that States forfeited their State existence by the fact of rebellion, Mr. Raymond said: "I do not see how there can be any such forfeiture involved or implied. The individual citizens of those States went into the rebellion. They thereby incurred certain penalties under the laws and Constitution of the United States. What the States did was to endeavor to interpose their State authority between the individuals in rebellion and the Government of the United States, which assumed, and which would carry out the assumption, to declare those individuals traitors for their acts. The individuals in the States who were in rebellion, it seems to me, were the only parties who, under the Constitution and laws of the United States, could incur the penalties of treason. I know of no law, I know of nothing in the Constitution of the United States, I know of nothing in any recognized or established code of international law, which can punish a State as a State for any act it may perform. It is certain that our Constitution assumes nothing of the kind. It does not deal with States, except in one or two instances, such as elections of members of Congress and the election of electors of President and Vice-President.

"Indeed, the main feature which distinguishes the Union under the Constitution from the old Confederation is this: that whereas the old Confederation did deal with States directly, making requisitions upon them for supplies and relying upon them for the execution of its laws, the Constitution of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, made its laws binding on the individual citizens of the several States, whether living in one State or in another. Congress, as the legislative branch of this Government, enacts a law which shall be operative upon every individual within its jurisdiction. It is binding upon each individual citizen, and if he resists it by force, he is guilty of a crime, and is punished accordingly, any thing in the constitution or laws of his State to the contrary notwithstanding. But the States themselves are not touched by the laws of the United States or by the Constitution of the United States. A State can not be indicted; a State can not be tried; a State can not be hung for treason. The individuals in a State may be so tried and hung, but the State as an organization, as an organic member of the Union, still exists, whether its individual citizens commit treason or not."

Mr. Raymond subsequently cited some of the consequences which he thought must follow the acceptance of the position assumed by Mr. Stevens. "If," said Mr. Raymond, "as he asserts, we have been waging war with an independent Power, with a separate nation, I can not see how we can talk of treason in connection with our recent conflict, or demand the execution of Davis or any body else as a traitor. Certainly if we were at war with any other foreign Power, we should not talk of the treason of those who were opposed to us in the field. If we were engaged in a war with France, and should take as prisoner the Emperor Napoleon, certainly we could not talk of him as a traitor or as liable to execution. I think that by adopting any such assumption as that of the honorable gentleman, we surrender the whole idea of treason and the punishment of traitors. I think, moreover, that we accept, virtually and practically, the doctrine of State sovereignty, the right of a State to withdraw from the Union, and to break up the Union at its own will and pleasure.

"Another of the consequences of this doctrine, as it seems to me, would be our inability to talk of loyal men in the South. Loyal to what? Loyal to a foreign, independent Power, as the United States would become under those circumstances? Certainly not. Simply disloyal to their own Government, and deserters, or whatever you may choose to call them, from that to which they would owe allegiance, to a foreign and independent State.

"Now, there is another consequence of the doctrine which I shall not dwell upon, but simply suggest. If that confederacy was an independent Power, a separate nation, it had the right to contract debts; and we, having overthrown and conquered that independent Power, according to the theory of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, would become the successors, the inheritors, of its debts and assets, and we must pay them."

Mr. Raymond set forth his theory of the conditions and relations of the late rebel States in the following language: "I certainly do not think these States are to be dealt with by us as provinces--as simply so much territory--held to us by no other ties than those of conquest. I think we are to deal with them as States having State governments, still subject to the jurisdiction of the Constitution and laws of the United States, still under the constitutional control of the National Government; and that in our dealings with them we are to be guided and governed, not simply by our sovereign will and pleasure as conquerors, but by the restrictions and limitations of the Constitution of the United States, precisely as we are restrained and limited in our dealings with all other States of the American Union."

In answer to the question how we are to deal with the late rebel States, Mr. Raymond remarked: "I think we have a full and perfect right to require certain conditions in the nature of guarantees for the future, and that right rests, primarily and technically, on the surrender we may and must require at their hands. The rebellion has been defeated. A defeat always implies a surrender, and, in a political sense, a surrender implies more than the transfer of the arms used on the field of battle. It implies, in the case of civil war, a surrender of the principles and doctrines, of all the weapons and agencies, by which the war has been carried on. The military surrender was made on the field of battle, to our generals, as the agents and representatives of the Commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States.

"Now, there must be at the end of the war, a similar surrender on the political field of controversy. That surrender is due as an act of justice from the defeated party to the victorious party. It is due, also, and we have a right to exact it, as a guarantee for the future. Why do we demand the surrender of their arms by the vanquished in every battle? We do it that they may not renew the contest. Why do we seek, in this and all similar cases, a surrender of the principles for which they fought? It is that they may never again be made the basis of controversy and rebellion against the Government of the United States.

"Now, what are those principles which should be thus surrendered? The principle of State sovereignty is one of them. It was the corner-stone of the rebellion--at once its animating spirit and its fundamental basis. Deeply ingrained as it was in the Southern heart, it must be surrendered. The ordinances in which it was embodied must not only be repealed, the principle itself must be abandoned, and the ordinances, so far as this war is concerned, be declared null and void, and that declaration must be embodied in their fundamental constitutions."

The speech was here interrupted by Mr. Bingham, who insisted that the adoption of the principle in the State constitutions would not be sufficient guarantee. Adoption in the Constitution of the United States was essential to its permanent effective force.

Mr. Raymond thought the Constitution of the United States as plain as possible in its declaration against the doctrine of State sovereignty. If any more explicit denial could be got into the Constitution, he would favor it.

"Another thing," said Mr. Raymond, "to be surrendered by the defeated rebellion is the obligation to pay the rebel war debt. We have the right to require this repudiation of their debt, because the money represented by that debt was one of the weapons with which they carried on the war against the Government of the United States.

"There is another thing which we have the right to require, and that is the prohibition of slavery. We have the right to require them to do this, not only in their State constitutions, but in the Constitution of the United States. And we have required it, and it has been conceded. They have also conceded that Congress may make such laws as may be requisite to carry that prohibition into effect, which includes such legislation as may be required to secure for them protection of their civil and personal rights--their 'right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'"

Mr. Spalding having inquired whether there was any limit to the right to make these requisitions, except the good judgment of Congress, Mr. Raymond answered:

"My impression is that these requisitions are made as a part of the terms of surrender which we have a right to demand at the hands of the defeated insurgents, and that it belongs, therefore, to the President, as Commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, to make them, and to fix the limit, as to what they shall embrace."

By way of setting forth the opinions of the "Radicals" in as strong a light as possible, Mr. Raymond said: "It may be for the welfare of this nation that we shall cherish toward the millions of our people lately in rebellion feelings of hatred and distrust; that we shall nurse the bitterness their infamous treason has naturally and justly engendered, and make that the basis of our future dealings with them. Possibly we may best teach them the lessons of liberty, by visiting upon them the worst excesses of despotism. Possibly they may best learn to practice justice toward others, to admire and emulate our republican institutions, by suffering at our hands the absolute rule we denounce in others. It may be best for us and for them that we discard, in all our dealings with them, all the obligations and requirements of the Constitution, and assert as the only law for them the unrestrained will of conquerors and masters."

In contrast with this, he placed what he supposed to be a different policy: "I would exact from them, or impose upon them through the constitutional legislation of Congress, and by enlarging and extending, if necessary, the scope and powers of the Freedmen's Bureau, proper care and protection for the helpless and friendless freedmen, so lately their slaves. I would exercise a rigid scrutiny into the character and loyalty of the men whom they may send to Congress, before I allowed them to participate in the high prerogative of legislating for the nation. But I would seek to allay rather than stimulate the animosities and hatred, however just they may be, to which the war has given rise. But for our own sake as well as for theirs, I would not visit upon them a policy of confiscation which has been discarded in the policy and practical conduct of every civilized nation on the face of the globe."

Mr. Raymond having closed his speech, it was moved that the Committee of the Whole should rise, but the motion was withdrawn to allow Mr. Jenckes, of Rhode Island, five minutes for reply. He said: "The gentleman states, and properly, that every act or ordinance of secession was a nullity. Undoubtedly it was. Upon that question of law we do not disagree. But he seems to me to overlook entirely what was the state of facts from the time of the passage of the ordinances of secession until the time of the surrender of Lee's army. During that period what were the relations which all that territory--I will not use the term States, but all that territory--between the Potomac and the Rio Grande sustained to the Government of the United States? Who could see States there for any purpose for which legislation was required by the Constitution of the United States?

"At the time of the passage of the ordinance of secession, States were organized there, in existence, in action, known to the Constitution and the constitutional authorities under it. But were they loyal? Did they obey the Constitution of the United States? This is a question that needs no answer other than that which is conveyed to every mind by the recollection of the last four years of war, with their expenditure of treasure and blood. Those States were not destroyed, in the technical language of the law--they simply died out. As their Governors passed out of office, as the terms of their legislatures expired, who knew those facts? None but themselves. And yet, behind this grand cordon of armies, stretching from here to the Rio Grande, there were States in existence, organized as States, but States in rebellion, occupying the territory belonging to the people of the United States. They were not acting in concert with this Government, but against it. That, Mr. Chairman, is a matter of fact. My eyes are not dimmed or blinded by the parchment upon which constitutions or laws are written. I, like the men who carried the bayonets and planted the cannon, recognize the fact that was before us during all this time. There was a state of rebellion. There were in that part of our territory no States known to our Constitution or the laws that we enact, or the officers whose duty it is to enforce those laws.

"I recognize, too, the next fact. Bear in mind, I am simply stating now what I conceive to be the facts. The question as to what may be the law can be reserved for discussion on another occasion. I recognize fully the duties of the Executive. And it was the duty of the President of the United States, as the head of the civil and military power of this great republic--not 'empire;' God forbid that this country should ever be so designated with applause or even with toleration--to beat down armed opposition to it, whether it came from a foreign power or from domestic insurrection. That was the duty of the President, and he recognized it; and it was not the duty of any one in this Congress to gainsay it. It was written on the face of the Constitution that the President was to see that the laws should be faithfully executed, and the power of this republic maintained, and he did so.

"The next fact--the fact which seems to me to be the one most pertinent for consideration now--is that the military power which was opposed to this Government has been destroyed. It was the duty of the Executive to see that this was done, and to report to the Congress of the United States that it has been done. But what then? Then there comes the third question of fact, intimately connected with the last, and hardly separable from it, because it requires the immediate action of the Executive and of Congress. All the power that existed in the shape of Confederated States behind rebel bayonets and fortifications has fallen to the earth. The territory which these States in rebellion occupied was the property of the people of the United States, and never could be taken from us. I hold it to be a question of public law, worthy of consideration by the representatives of the American people, by the President and the Administration generally, to ascertain what existed in the shape of civil constitutions and laws behind the military government that has been overthrown. I hesitate not to say, here or elsewhere, that the Executive of this Government has done his duty in this matter. All conquering nations, when they overcome a rebellious people by overthrowing their military power, look, as did the Government of Great Britain when it had overcome the mutiny in India, to see what government of a civil kind has existed or may exist from custom among the people who are conquered. I see no reason in this view to discriminate between the argument of the gentleman from Pennsylvania and the argument of the gentleman from New York. It seems to me, that if they will look at the particular questions which are now before us, and which require our action, the differences would be in terms and not in substance."

The people of the predominant party generally acquiesced in the opinion of Mr. Jenckes, as expressed in the conclusion of his remarks as above presented. They conceived that the difference between the various views of the whole question was "one of details and not of essence." The question of reconstruction was purely practical. All shades of opinion in the Republican party blended in this: that the States in question were not to be restored until satisfactory pledges were given to the United States. All speculation or attempt at argument in reference to their abstract condition was consequently superfluous--"a pernicious abstraction," in the language of Mr. Lincoln.

If some were not prepared to accept the deductions of Mr. Stevens, yet accepting the logic of Mr. Raymond, they would be carried almost as far. The latter held that the citizens of those States were defeated insurgents who must submit to any conditions of surrender imposed by the victorious commander. Certain concessions could be rightfully demanded as parts of their surrender and conditions of their restoration. Their acquiescence had been required in a constitutional amendment affecting the great social and industrial interests of Southern society. After this none could deny the right, whatever might be the expediency, of requiring their assent to other amendments bearing upon the political structure of the Southern States.

Some of the predominant party were willing to stop short in their demands upon the rebel States with requiring acceptance of the emancipation amendment, repudiation of the rebel debt, legal protection of freedmen, and revocation of the ordinances of secession. The majority, however, were disposed to go still further, and demand other conditions and guarantees which should become a part of the fundamental law of the land. This was the practical work of reconstruction for which the Joint Committee of Fifteen was preparing the way, and upon which Congress was soon to enter.

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