May 8, 1866 (3)

Mr. GARFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I do not rise to speak at length upon the pending measure, but for the purpose of entering a motion and submitting a few practical suggestions on the bill, and particularly in reference to the third section.

With almost every proposition in the report of the joint committee on reconstruction 1 am pleased; yes, more than pleased, I am delighted that we have at least reached the firm earth, and planted our feet upon the solid granite, on enduring and indubitable principle. I believe we have at last a series of propositions which, in the main, will meet the approval of the American people as no others have ever done since the beginning of this struggle.

I will not go into a general discussion of the reconstruction policy, but will confine myself in the few words I shall say to the joint resolution and the amendment to the Constitution proposed by it now before the House, and more particularly to one section of it. First let me say I regret more than I shall be able to tell this House that we have notfound the situatiou of affairs in this country such, and the public virtue such that we might come out on the plain, unanswerable proposition that every adult intelligent citizen of the United States, unconvicted of crime, shall enjoy the right of suffrage.

Sir, I believe that the right to vote, if it be not indeed one of the natural rights of all men, is so necessary to the protection of their natural rights as to be indispensable, and therefore equal to natural rights. I believe that the golden sentence of John Stuart Mill, in one of his greatest works, ought to be written on the constitution of every State, and on the Constitution of the United States, as the greatest and most precious of truths, "That the ballot is put into the hands of men, not so much to enable them to govern others as that he may not be misgoverned by others." 1 believe that suffrage is the shield, the sword, the spear, and all the panoply that best befits a man for his own defense in the great social organism to which he belongs. And I profoundly regret that we have not been enabled to write it and engrave it upon our institutions, and imbed it in the imperishable bulwarks of the Constitution as a part of the fundamental law of the land. But I am willing, as I said once before in this presence, when I cannot get all I wish to take what I can get. And therefore I am willing to accept the propositions that the committee have laid before us, though I desire one amendment which I will mention presently.

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

As the nearest approach to justice which we are likely to be able to make, I approve of the second section that bases representation upon voters. I believe the section is now free from the objections that killed it in the Senate, and I have no doubt it will now pass that body.

I am glad to see the fourth section here, which forever forbids the payment of the rebel debt. I am quite sure that on the proposition no man in this House will vote in the negative. Some may think the section unnecessary, but for abundant caution, and "to make assurance doubly sure," let it become a part of the Constitution.

It is to the third section that I wish to call the attention of the House for a moment. The gentleman from Maine [Mr. Blaine] has made a point against it, which has at least this value; that whatever may be the intention of the committee or of the House, the section is least susceptible of double construction. Some may say that it revokes and nullifies in part the pardons that have already been granted in accordance with law and the proclamations of the President. Others may say that it does not affect them, and will not apply to rebels who have been thus pardoned.

Mr. STEVENS.* Will the gentleman allow me to interrupt him a moment?

Mr. GARFIELD. Certainly.

Mr. STEVENS. I was not perhaps sufficiently explicit in what I said in answer to the interrogatory of the gentleman from Maine, [Mr. Blaine.] I admit that a pardon removes all liability to punishment for a crime committed. But there is a vast difference between punishing for a crime and withholding a privilege. Nobody will doubt that you may distinguish between classes in the privileges accorded to them if you think their enjoyment would be dangerous to the community. While I admit that the pardon will be full and operative so far as the crime is concerned, it confers no other advantages than an exemption from punishment for the crime itself.

Mr. GARFIELD. I was about to say that if the section does not apply to those who have been pardoned, then it will apply to so small a number of people as to make it of no practical value; for the excepted classes in the general System of pardons form a very small fraction of the rebels. If the section does apply to those who have received the pardon, the objection pf the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Blaine] may be worthy of consideration.

But, without entering into the question of construction at all, and if there were no doubt or difference on that score, there are still other points to which I wish to call the attention of the House. If the proposition had been that those who had been in rebellion should be ineligible to any office under the Government of the United States, and should be ineligible to appointment as electors of the President and Vice President of the United States, or if all who had voluntarily borne arms against the United States had been declared forever incapable of voting for a United States officer, it would, in my judgment, be far more defensible. But what is the proposition? It is that— Until the 4th day of July, in the year 1870, all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection, giving it aid and comfort, shall be excluded from the right to vote for Representatives in Congress and for doctors for President and Vice President of the United States.

Now, Mr. Speaker, this, in my judgment, is the only proposition in this resolution that is not bottomed clearly and plainly upon principle—principle that will stand the test of centuries, and be as true a thousand years hence as it is to day If the persons referred to are not worthy to be allowed to vote in January of 1870, will they be worthy in July of that year? If the franchise were withheld until they should perform some specific act of loyalty, if it were conditioned upon any act of theirs, it would commend itself as a principle, but the fixing of an ordinary date, without any regard to the character or conduct of the parties themselves, i3 indefensible, and will not commend itself to the judgment of reflecting men. What is worse, it will be said everywhere that this is purely a piece of political management in reference to a presidential election.

Now, I desire that what goes into our Constitution shall be the pure gold, unalloyed, untainted, having mingled with it nothing that will not stand the test of the ages. I fear that the proposition to which I have just referred might not stand that crucial test.

But, sir, I invite the attention of the House to another consideration. -Suppose this section should become a part of the Constitution, and suppose that it were entirely defensible as a matter of principle, I ask gentlemen how it is to be carried out in practice. If, under its operation in eleven States of the Union, nine tenths, and, in some instances, ninety nine hundredths of the adult population are to be disfranchised for four years, how do you propose to carry its provisions into practical execution? Will nine tenths of the population consent to stay at home and let one tenth do the voting? Will not every ballot-box be the scene of strife and bloodshed? It may well be doubted whether this section can be carried out except by having a military force at every ballot-box in eleven States of the Union. Are you ready to make the South a vast camp for four years more? I am ready to do that or anything else in the way of expense, if it is necessary as means of securing liberty and union: but I believe that great result can be achieved in a less expensive way. But it is evident to mo that if this section becomes a part of the Constitution, it must either remain a dead letter or we must maintain a large army to enforce it. 1 do not, therefore, think it wise or prudent, both for practical reasons and for reasons of construction, as suggested by the gentleman from Maine, that the third section shall stand as a part of the Constitution in its present form.

I am sure no member of this House will think that I make this motion with the least desire to favor or excuse in any way the men who have been in arms against the Government, I trust I do' not need to make such a disclaimer to any person here, or among Union men anywhere. But I desire that any proposition which may be submitted by us for ratification by the States shall be so grounded in practical wisdom, that when it is presented to the American people, any man who votes against it will need to hide his face in shame. And there are thousands of men who only need some little excuse to justify themselves in voting against this great and good measure, i had nearly completed a substitute for this section providing that no person who had voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection should ever be eligible to any office under the United States, but as I have not perfected it I will not present it now. I hope, however, we may begin by striking out the section as it now stands.

Is it now in order, Mr. Speaker, to move an amendment?

The SPEAKER. A motion to amend is not in order pending a motion to recommit.

Mr. GARFIELD. Then i move that the resolution be recommitted to the committee, with instructions to report it back to the House with the third section stricken out.

Mr. RAYMOND. I inquire whether it will not be in order to call for a division on the different sections of this amendment. I think that will lie the better way to test the sense of the House.

Mr. GARFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I think when the vote comes to be taken on the motion to recommit, with instructions to strike out, the merits of the question will be tested by the House.

Mr. RAYMOND. I ask whether it will bo in order to call for a division now, or at any time. TheSPEAKER. Aresolntioncanbedivided if each part can stand by itself, but a bill or joint resolution cannot be divided. It may be amended. Sometimes the House considers them section by section. They stand as a whole, and must be so considered.

Mr. RAYMOND. Can this be considered section by section?

The SPEAKER. It has been reported as a whole and must be acted on as a whole.

Mr. RAYMOND. If this be considered section by section, then a two thirds vote will be required to carry each section. If amendment is necessary a majority can make it.

The SPEAKER. A majority can amend it, but it will require two thirds to pass it.

Mr. ELD RIDGE. I rise to make an inquiry. This being an amendment to the Constitution in three different particulars I ask whether it will not be required that we shall vote on them separately. I ask whether we can amend the Constitution by adding provisions grouped together in the manner in which these are without voting on each distinct proposition. Do not the Constitution and law require that they should be so voted on?

The SPEAKER. They do not. The proposition is reported by the committe as a whole, and although it embrace different provisions, yet this House and the Senate and the people will vote on it as a whole.

Mr. GARFIELD. It appeal s then, tliatmy motion is the only one that will bring us to a vote on this subject.

The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] has the right to withdraw his motion to recommit, and with the withdrawal of that motion the instructions would fall.

Mr. GARFIELD. Would I not have the right to renew the motion?

The SPEAKER. The gentleman could renew his instructions if the previous question were not sustained.

Mr. GARFIELD. Would I not have the right to move to amend if the previous question were voted down?

The SPEAKER. It would then be in order.

Mr. GARFIELD. Now, Mr. Speaker, if the gentlemen who report this bill will put in a section, that all who participated in the rebellion shall forever be excluded from the right of elective franchise, in all cases relating to national offices, then I will say the proposition will be just and one we could stand upon as a matter of principle. Anything is just which excludes from privilege and power all those infamous men who participated in rebellion. The proposition, without any modification, without any limitation, would meet with my approval as one eminently just, if it could be practically carried out. But when you attempt to make it extend only for a limited period, you thereby acknowledge that as a principle they ought not to be excluded except for a limited period. I am unwilling to admit that proposition. Asa matter of principle they should either be forever excluded, or allowed to come in when they comply with such conditions as the loyal people of this country, through their representatives in Congress may prescribe. I do not think we can so well stand a mixed proposition like this.

Mr. DAWES. The gentleman proposes to submit practical views on this question, and in that view I ask him by what method the Congress of the United States could carry out that proposition if it is to deprive these parties of the right to vote in State affairs without erecting themselves into a tribunal in which to settle the question itself. I ask in that connection what tribunal is erected either in the Constitution or laws of the United States by which to settle the question in the appointment of electors of President and Vice President? Is there any tribunal provided either in the Constitution or the laws of the United States to test the question, should the time ever come when the elections of a President and Vice President depends upon the right of certain men to vote as electors or members ot the Electoral College, and yet their right so to vote be disputed?

It seems to me there is a defect somewhere in the want of any tribunal known to the Constitution and laws by which you can ever determine this question, and the time may eotrte when the whole nation will be rent in twain upon that question.

Mr. GARFIELD. I am obliged to the gentleman from Massachusetts. I had noted that point, and in this running debate was about to overlook it, that in case this provision should prevail and there should, come up at the next presidential election a number of electors from those eleven States whose vote would determine the fate of the election, and then in the Electoral College the question should be raised whether those electors were chosen by men who had been in rebellion, what tribunal have we to decide that question? Have we any committee of elections provided for in the Electoral College? Have we any court, have we any tribunal whatever under the Constitution to which that important question could be referred?

It is not impossible that this section might bring us face to face with a new and most dangerous question, the solution of which is not easy to see.

Mr. SCOFIELD. Will the gentleman yield for a question?

Mr. GARFIELD. Yes, sir.

Mr. SCOFIELD. The gentleman says that he will go for an amendment to the Constitution that shall disfranchise this class forever. Now, I wish to ask him, if ho should get the report amended to suit him in that respect, how is he going to get a tribunal to decide that question any better than now?

Mr. GARFIELD. The gentleman s question does not involve me in any difficulty. I did not say I was in favor of putting such a clause into this amendment in view of all the circumstances, but I said that that proposition would bo more just than the present one, and I would prefer it. There would be practical difficulties in the way of either proposition, but more I think in the way of this.

Mr. HOTCHKISS. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GARFIELD. Excuse me: I shall conclude my remarks in a few moments. My colleague [Mr. Finck] denounces this proposition- and the whole scheme of the reconstruction committee as revolutionary, and calls upon the South to rally unitedly, and trusts they will have the manliness to resist it. It is not the first time that gentlemen on that side of the House have asked the South to rally against the North. During the last live years of bloody war -their voices and their votes here and their actions elsewhere have been characterized by the sartie spirit, and havcJielped to unite and rally the South against the Union. It does not become these men who have so long pursued these revolutionary schemes against, liberty to charge this House with being revolutionary when it is struggling to restore both liberty and Union to the Republic.

Mr. FiNCLC. Does the gentleman refer to what I said a few moments ago?

Mr. GARFIELD. I do.

Mr. FINCK. The gentleman has misstated what I said. I called upon the South to rally around the policy of Andrew .Johnson; nothing about rebellion.

Mr. GARFIELD. Well, Mr. Speaker, how much difference there is between the gentleman s sentiment as I repeated it and as he himself states it I leave it to the House to judge. I understood him to call upon the people of the South to have the manliness to resist the operations of Congress and of the great Union party.

Mr. FINCK. I did not use the word" resist."

Mr. GARFIELD. The gentleman can consult his notes. If he did not use the word he knows best, and I desire to be corrected if I misrepresent him. But I understood him to say that he trusted there was sufficient manhood in the people of the South to unite and resist the revolutionary schemes of this Congress, as he was pleased to denominate them. -Mr. FINCK. One word. I said I hoped they would have the firmness and manliness -of spirit to unite and reject this proposed amendment, which was calculated to subordinate them as States in the Union.

Mr. GARFIELD. They have undertaken to reject and resist our scheme of restoring the Union for five years, and they propose now, and the gentleman by his own confession invites them to continue to unite and reject the scheme of the great Union party and of the people to build up liberty in this country and put down traitors and treason everywhere. I call upon the great Union party to stand together, and with all their manhood resist the revolutionary schemes not only of these rebels at the South, but of their coadjutors and abettors on this floor and everywhere who would unite with them and trample not only upon the prostrate body of the Union party, but, as I believe, of liberty herself. I have done.

Mr. THAYER obtained the floor.

Mr. FINCK. Will the gentleman allow me just one moment?

Mr. THAYER. I will yield to the gentleman for a moment.

Mr. FINCK. I desire to say to my colleague, for whom I have the highest respect, that in my judgment there is but one party in this country that is a disunion party, and he belongs to it. [Laughter on the Republican side of the House.]

Mr. GARFIELD. I am willing to stand by my record as a Union man.

Mr. THAYER. Mr. Speaker, the proceedings of the House to day will, I trust, silence, at once and forever, the clamorous calumnies which have been industriously propagated by designing persons ever since this Congress convened, in which it was asserted that this Congress had no intention of taking any steps the object of which was the restoration of peace and concord to this whole country.

There have been persons, sir, very wise in their own conceit, great builders of States in their own judgment, and great law makers if their own opinions are to be received as truth, who have supposed that the .great work upon which this Congress has entered was a work which might be accomplished with as much facility as a justice of the peace would dispose of an insignificant ease in his court; and who saw, in the subject which engages the attention of this House, a matter of no grander dimensions than those which characterize the ordinary legislation of Congress. In the opinion of these persons the accumulated ruin of four years of civil war was to be remedied in an hour; States which were disorganized and rent from the parent Government by organized secession: by the deliberate and solemn act, of conventions of the people; by the passage of laws during a period of four years; by the formation ot new local governments; and by the exercise of every defaclo sovereign power, were, in the opinion of these wiseacres, to be regenerated and restored to their normal relations to the Government, whoselaws they had overthrown and trampled under foot, with as much facility as you would pass the most unimportant bill, and with as little delay as it would require to call the yeas and nays in this House.

Let the American people, Mr. Speaker, i understand, as I doubt not they do generally understand, the magnitude of the ruin which has been caused by the rebellion, and they will comprehend the labors and the difficulties which attend the reconstruction of those old relations of loyalty and fidelity to the Constitution which once characterized these States. Sir, for one, I have never lost my faith in the wisdom and discretion of the able committee to whom, at the outset of this Congress, this most important subject was committed. For one, I have not doubted that as soon as itcould be accomplished, within as short a compass of time as the nature of the subject and the extent of the labors devolved upon them would permit, they would present to this House some scheme upon which the loyal people of the country might unite to effect a perfect restoration of peace and harmony throughout the United. States. To the scheme which they have presented for that purpose, with the exception of one feature contained in it, and upon which I will presently remark, I am prepared, after due deliberation, to give my cordial assent and approval. The exception to which I refer is the provision of the third section of the proposed amendment to the Constitution.

With regard to the first section of the proposed amendment to the Constitution, I cannot conceive that any loyal man can hold any other view upon that subject than that which is indicated in the proposed amendment. The Constitution of the United States apportioned Representatives and direct taxes among the several States according to their respective numbers, and ordained that those numbers should be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those held to service for a term of years and Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. So stood the Constitution at the commencement of the rebellion. By that instrument three fifths of the class of persons known as slaves were counted in the enumeration which fixed the basis of representation in this House.

How stands the Constitution now? Why, sir, the literal application of the Constitution to the present state of affairs makes this late slave population of the rebel States count in the representation in this body, not as three fifths, but as five fifths. Will any man say that that was contemplated by the framers of the Constitution? Will any man say that it was within the intention of the framers of that instrument that the late slaves in this country should, by an unforeseen state of public affairs, under a provision which enacted that thej should count in the basis of representation as three fifths, come to count as five fifths, while at home they are counted politically as nothing? Yetthis is what isproposedby those who oppose this amendment. It seems to me no man can maintain that proposition upon any principle of justice or sound political reasoning- What number of Representatives will this bring into this Chamber from the rebel States by way of increase over the former number that came here under the terms of the Constitution? About thirteen members. Is it not preposterous that after all the trials, the sacrifices, the sufferings, and the hardships caused by this great war for the Union the result of the success of the Government should be the increase of representation in this House on the part of those who made the rebellion, by adding thirteen members which they had not before the war? Is there a man here who dare go before the northern people and tell them that they are to be rewarded for the losses and sufferings which they have sustained by having thirteen additional members admitted into this body from the rebel States. I want to see the northern constituency that will send a Representative here who declares in plain terms that that is just and that he is in favor of it.

Now, I ask gentlemen on the other side of the House why that should be done. If you say that this large class of persons have been transformed from their late condition of chattels to a condition in which they constitute a part of the element of the political fabric, then J can conceive that having added that much in population to the thinking, voting men of the southern States, it would be just and proper that that addition should be represented in this body. But we all know that such is not the ease. In those States themselves the late slaves do not enter into the basis of local representation. In South Carolina they do not enter into the basis of representation in the Legislature of that State. And anybody who will read the new constitution of South Carolina will see that such is the case.

Would it not be a most unprecedented thing that when this population are not permitted where they reside to enter into the basis of representation in their own State, we should receive it as an element of representation here; that when they will not count them in apportioning their own legislative .districts, .we are to count them as fire fifths (nojonger as three fifths, for that is out of thecjuestion) as soon as you make a new apportionment? I am not going to dwell upon that proposition. I believe it to be a proposition which the people of this country will understand, without much discussion. You have only to enunciate that proposition in plain terms in order to secure for it the unqualified rebuke of every mail who sustained the Government during the war for the Union.

With regard to the second section of the proposed amendment to the Constitution, it simply brings into the Constitution what is found in the bill of rights of every State of the Union. As I understand it, it is but incorporating in the Constitution of the United States the principle of the civil rights bill which lias lately become a law, and that, not as the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Fi ck suggested, because in the estimation of this House that law cannot be sustained as constitutional, but in order, as was justly said by the gentleman from Ohio wholastaddresscdthellou se [Mr. Garfield,] that that provision so necessary for the equal administration of the law, so just in its operation, so necessary for the protection of the fundamental rights of citizenship, shall be forever incorporated in the Constitution of the United States. But, sir, that subject has already been fully discussed, I have upon another occasion expressed my views upon it, and I do not propose to detain the House with any further remarks of my own upon it.

I pass now to the third section of the proposed amendment, and here, sir, I am constrained to say that 1 do not believe it to be either proper or expedient to retain this section of the proposed amendment. I do not believe it for the reason which is contained in the preamble of one of the bills reported by the committee, the "bill to' provide for the restoration to the States lately in insurrection of their full political rights." The preamble of that bill, as reported by the committee, reads as follows:

Whereas it is expedient that the States lately in insurrection should, at the earliest day consistent with the future peace and safety of the Union, bo restored to full participation in all political rights. I am opposed to the third section of the proposed amendment because I am in favor of the preamble of (ho bill. 1 am opposed to it because it looks to me like offering to the people of the States lately in rebellion peace and restoration with one hand, while you snatch it from them with the other. I am opposed to it because I think it will keep this country, which we seek to pacify and to bring back to its old state of allegiance, in a state of constant turmoil and disaffection if it does not rekindle afresh the fires of civil war.

Sir, I suppose the object of the present programme to be to indicate a plan which has for its object the immediate, not the prospective, restoration of the people of these States to the privileges they have lost. Immediate, if the safety of the country will permit. If the safety of the country will not, upon any conditions, admit of it, then, sir, we had better dismiss the whole subject. If the safety of the country will admit of it, then let us name those conditions.

That, sir, is what the committee, in my understanding, have attempted to do; but among the conditions which they have named is this one, which, in my judgment, is not necessary or expedient, and which appears to me to be impolitic and fraught with dangerous consequences. Sir, with what propriety, let me ask this House, can wo present an offer to the people of the South to return to their allegiance, and to unite with us once more in the maintenance in good faith of the Constitution, if, while we propose as a condition the ratification of an amendment to the Constitution, and as another condition the ineligibility of the leaders of the rebellion to Federal office, we say to them at the same time that, although you comply with these conditions, although you agree to adopt this amendment, although you agree that representation shall be based upon the numbers which constitute a part of 39th (Jons. 1st Sess —No 155. the body politic although you agree that some example shall be made of this great iniquity by excluding from Federal office those who were ringleaders in it, yet you shall not bo restored to the right of representation or to any participation in public affairs until the year 1870?

Now, sir, I am opposed to that; I think that it imperils the whole measure under consideration; and when I say that, I do not speak so much of the fate of that measure in this House as I speak of its fate in the country at large. I do not believe that the people of the loyal States will subscribe to either the necessity or the expediency of the third section of the proposed amendment to the Constitution. I believe, sir, that the masses of the loyal people of this country, those who made the greatest sacrifices to save it, are in favor of the restoration of these political rights to the southern people just as soon as they can be restored with safety; and I think that they regard as the only security and only safety which you can exact or obtain, the reform of the principle of representation, or rather the proper adjustment of the Constitution as regards representation to the new state of things. That is the point to which the loyal millions of this country turn their eve.; for future peace and security. They know that if, instead of reducing the representation of the southern States in this House to a standard of just equality with ourselves, you leave the Constitution as it is to operate upon an unforeseen state of affairs, and give thirteen new Representatives to the lately disloyal States in this House upon a basis which they repudiate at home, there, will bo no peace and no security in the future for this Government. The inequality of representation worked by the result of the war in the emancipation of the slaves must be remedied. Representation must be based upon a population which is counted as a part of the body politic and which forms an element of government. This must be done by an amendment of the Constitution, the original provisions of which are inapplicable to the altered condition of public affairs.

The loyal people who have preserved the Government demand this amendment to the Constitution. In my judgment, they will never, if they can prevent it, suffer this Government to be long without this amendment to the Constitution, because it would be a most unjust and cruel return for all the sacrifices which they have made, to deny them this measure of justice. But, sir, they do not, in my judgment, demand as a further price of security that the rehabilitation of the southern people, with all the rights of freemen, shall be postponed until 1870. I agree that it is just and expedient and proper that you should fasten a badge of shame upon this great crime of rebellion by rendering ineligible to office under the United States those who have been leaders in the insurrection against the Government. But, sir, this third section goes much farther than this. It declares that the masses of the people in the lately insurrectionary States—because it is idle to talk of the people in connection with the infinitesimal number of Union men in those States—shall be disfranchised. We know that the masses of the people there, with exceptions too small to be counted, did support the rebellion, and supported it with their whole heart. They supported it in the field; they supported it by the payment of taxes; they supported it by speech and by votes; they supported it in every village and by every fireside. Everybody knows that. We cannot deny it. There is no use in attempting to conceal the fact. And in dealing with a great subject like this it is better to look facts in the face and treat them as facts. The third section of the proposed amendment disfranchises until 1870 this whole people, while the measure itself is presented to us as a measure of universal pacification as well as a measure for future security.

I do not believe, sir, that this feature of the measure which is proposed will meet the approval of our constituents. I believe that what the constituencies of the States now represented in Congress demand is, not prospective reconstruction, but immediate reconstruction with conditions that will secure the public safety. As I have already said, the great condition of public safety anil security is the readjustment of the Constitution upon the subject of representation, that article of the Constitution which relates to the subject of representation having been pushed by the war from the original sphere of its operation, and which will, without amendment, operate in a manner never contemplated by the framers of the Constitution and with a degree of injustice to which the loyal States cannot consent to submit, and to which they will not submit if it can be prevented.

What will continue to be the condition of the country if you adopt this feature of the proposed plan? Continual distraction, continued agitation, continued bickerings, continued opposition to the law, and it will be well for the country if a new insurrection shall not spring from its bosom.

[Here the hammer fell.]

The SPEAKER. The gentleman s time has expired.

Mr. XJBIjACK. I give notice that I will offer the following amendment if I shall have the opportunity:

Add to the fifth section as follows:

I rovuk t That nothing contained in this article shall bo so construed as to authorize Congress to regulate or control the cieofivo franchise within any State, or to abridge or restrict the power of any State to regulate or control the same within its own jurisdiction, except as in the third section hereof prescribed.

Mr. BOYER. Many great questions of public policy depend upon the decision of this Congress, but the greatest of them all is that which involves the restoration of the States to thci r practical relations with the Federal Union. Until that great end shall have been accomplished the triumph of the Government, over the rebellion will bo still incomplete; and the rebellion itself may claim at least a partial victory in so far as it has succeeded in removing (he ancient landmarks of the Constitution, and in marring the symmetry of that constitutional Union of States which, as it came from the hands of our fathers, was the masterpiece of human government and the admiration of the world.

After the outbreak of civil war, the first essential work of the nation was the forcible suppression of the rebellion. That work, after a four years' struggle, the most sanguinary and costly in the history of revolutions, has been fully accomplished. Thanks to the unparalleled gallantry and endurance of our soldiers, and the unparalleled patriotism, energy, and generosity of the people, armed rebellion against the laws has been everywhere subdued, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, and from the Aroostook to the Rio Grande, there is peace. Exhausted by an unequal strife, conquered by overwhelming numbers, the late rebellious States lie prostrate at the feet of the Federal power, their population decimated and impoverished, their resources crippled and for the time well nigh destroyed, and the causefor which they fought so madly and suffered so much hopelessly and forever lost. How shall the relations of national unity and harmony be restored between the States lately so discordant and belligerent? How shall the cruel wounds inflicted by the sections upon each other be healed? And above all, how shall the reunion be completed without the sacrifice of any of those principles and guarantees of civil liberty which we inherited, and without destroying the proportions of that political system of State and Federal jurisdiction which constituted the chief excellence of our Republic and has been the chief cause of its wonderful success? These are the important questions which devolve upon the present Congress of the United States. But however vast in its importance and comprehensive in its scope is the work which thus devolved upon Congress, it did not at first seem proportionately difficult. When Congress assembled in last December the lately rebellious States were already subdued and submissive, and all eager to renew their allegiance to the Constitution and the laws. Their Senators and Representatives were here to take the constitutional oath •of office, and in the name of their respective States to pledge their fealty to the Federal authority. In other ways they had manifested their good faith. They rescinded their ordinances of secession. They adopted the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. To an ordinary observer not versed in the intricacies of party politics it must have appeared as if all the sacrifices of the war were about to be atoned by the blessings of a redeemed and reunited country. The temper of the southern people was most propitious. In answer to a resolution of the Senate, on the 18th of December, President Johnson said:

"la* that portion of the Union lately in rebellion' the aspect of affairs is more promising than, in view of all the circumstances, could well have been expected. The people throughout the entire South evince a laudable desire to renew their allegiance to the Government, and to repair the devastations of war by a prompt and cheerful return to peaceful pursuits. An abiding faith is entertained that their actions will conform to their professions, and that, in acknowledging the supremacy of the Constitution and the law? of the United States, theirloyalty will be unreservedly given to the Government, whose leniency they cannot fail to appreciate, and whose fostering care will soon restore them to a condition of prosperity."

On the same day, and in response to the same resolution of the Senate, General Grant said:

"My observations lead mo to the conclusion that the citizens of the southern States are anxious to return to self-government within the Union as soon as possible; that while reconstructing they want and require protection from the Government; that they are in earnest in wishing to do what they think is l required by tho Government, nothmniliatingtothom as citizens, and that if such a course were pointed out they would pursue it in good faith."

And he added these other significant words, as if to administer a rebuke to the proscriptive body of men to whom his language was addressed:

"It is to be regretted thatthcreeannotbe a greater comminuting at this tune between the citizens of the two sections, and particularly of those intrusted with the law making power."

Such was the condition of affairs at the commencement of the present Congress. All obstacles to immediate reunion seemed to have been happily removed. At the South no man opposed. But lo, in this hour of the nation s hope and expectation, the leaders of the great socalled Union party stood at the doors of the Capitol and barred the way. They demanded of the repentant and returning rebels new guarantees as the price of representation in Congress. "You represent dead States," saidone; 'Treason is a crime and must be punished," said another;" Give the ballot to the negroes," said all of them; "Disfranchise nine tenths of your white voters," said another; "You are too many," said the chief among the leaders, "you will vote with the Democrats, and they and you together, being a majority of the people, .epublicans will at out the of very office." first election turn the It. shall now be my purpose, as briefly as I can, to analyze and expose the nature of the guarantees in the absence of which this Congress proposes to perpetuate disunion. I maintain that they are no guarantees for the safety of the Republic which are wanted, but guarantees for the safety of the Republican party. For this it is that the hopes of the nation have been falsified, and great national responsibilities and interests sacrificed and betrayed. For this it was, and not for the restoration of the Union, that the joint committee of fifteen on reconstruction was invented. Its author and mover has been fitly enough placed at its head. From that moment disappointment ceased, for hope had fled. No sane or intelligent man in the country from that hour ever looked to the committee of fifteen for anything else than an ingenious scheme to keep out the southern States, and to prevent the restoration of the Union until after the next presidential election. I do not mean to attribute to the chairman of the committee of fifteen the sole responsibility of the acts or omissions of either the committee itself or of the Congress which created it. On the contrary, I concede that he truly represents the principles and policy of the majority in this Congress, and that the leadership is his, not only by parliamentary usage, but by the natural right which pertains to experience, ability, and courage. Nothing is further from my intentions than to indulge in unbecoming personalities; but I must be allowed to say that the selection of such a leader is a fact which affords me a legitimate argument in" favor of the position I take. For months before Congress met my colleague from the Lancaster district had been abroad through the land, breathing proscription, and confiscation, and forfeiture of State rights, and advocating suffrage for millions of negroes and disfranchisement for millions of white men. All this was well known to every member of this House; for my colleague is no obscure person, and he is not in the habit of hiding his light under a bushel. When, therefore, I find this statesman the "head center" of the Republican majority, his acknowledged leadership is conclusive evidence that his policy is the policy of his party. In the first speech made by him in the beginning of this Congress he candidly stated that the new guarantees demanded of the southern States were intended for party purposes. In advocating the change in the basis of representation as it is now substantially embodied in the proposed constitutional amendment, he said:"

"With the basis unchanged, tho eighty three southern members, with the Democrats that will in the best of times be elected from the North, will always give them a majorityin Congress and in the Electoral College. They will at the very first election take possession of the White House and the Halls of Congress." And again:"

If they should grant the right of suffrage to persons of color, I think there would always be Union white men enough in the South, aided by the blacks, to divide the representation, and thus continue the Republican ascendency."

In none of the speeches which have been made upon this floor by other prominent leaders of the majority will be found any declaration of motive so outspoken as that of the chairman of the committee on reconstruction. But in all of them will be found a course of argument in harmony with the policy declared by him, and adverse to the immediate restoration of the Union. The Congressional Globe groans beneath the weight of innumerable columns of labored argument to prove that eleven States are States no more, but subjugated provinces outside of the Union, and subject to the absolute will of the conqueror. To prove this disunion theory the various authors upon international law have been ransacked, and Grotius and Vattel have been misapplied and perverted with an amount of zeal and industry which might be entitled to commendation if employed to unite instead of to divide the country.

I do not propose to follow these learned doctors through the labyrinths which lead to the theoretical death and amputation of eleven members of the body politic For after all the refinements of logic and the subtleties of foreign lore have been exhausted they fail to answer the simple practical question. If, as admitted by all, secession was a failure and the war a success, how did the rebellious States get out of the Union? If they are States in the Union shall we appeal to Grotius and Vattel to define their rights, and the status of their people, and the extent of the Federal power over them? Or shall we rather go to th e fountain head of our own political system, the Constitution of the United States, and to the writings of those who made it? What, indeed, if the States were dead, or as some with more refinement than others express it, in a state of suspended animation, what might we then expect from a body of patriotic statesmen assembled for the reconstruction of the Government? Which would be the purer and the nobler statesmanship, to trample upon the inanimate carcasses of the prostrate States with the iron heels of political proscription and sectional hate, or to breathe into their passive forms anew the breath of life, and start them again in the career of honor, prosperity, and equality?

In elaboration and earnest zeal the arguments of the majority for the exclusion of States from the Union are only equaled by the efforts of the same reasoners in favor of the disfranchisement of their people after they get in. This is proposed by the joint committee on reconstruction as a condition precedent to their admission at all. The purpose of this wholesale disfranchisement of the white people of the South who have been engaged in the rebellion becomes more clearly evident when wo consider the coordinate branch of the same scheme for acquiring control of the ballot-box by the enfranchisement of the blacks. Upon what a comprehensive basis of philanthropy these political artificers profess to build the theory of "no distinction of race or color!" To what a sublime pitch of eloquent declamation they swell this lofty theme of universal brotherhood. But everything has its limit; and so it seems has the humanity of the Republican majority of the Thirty Ninth Congress and its legitimate representative, the reconstruction committee. As a set off to these glowing dissertations in favor of the political rights of about four million American negroes, we have from the same source arguments equally elaborate and expressions of emotion equally as intense in favor of the right and justice of excluding from all political privileges about twice that many millions of white Americans.

Both those objects are sought to be accomplished by the proposed amendment to the Constitution reported by the committee, and now before the House for discussion. That amendment, together with the bills reported in connection with the same, is submitted to the House and the country as the best considered plan of reconstruction which t hc committee, after five months' incubation, have been able to produce for the consolation of a distracted nation. The plan is, at least in my opinion, most admirably adapted to its design, which was nothing more nor less than the solution of the problem of" how not to do it." In this T think it maybe fairly said, in justice to the committee, that they have fully met the public expectation.

The terms laid down by the committee as the conditions precedent to the admission of representatives in Congress from the States lately in insurrection are of such a nature as to preclude any reasonable hope of their acceptance. The third section of the proposed constitutional amendment, which I propose first to consider, is itself sufficient to convince any reflecting man that the amendment is not intended for adoption, but only to operate by means of its expected non adoption as an excuse for the exclusion of southern representatives for an indefinite period. It reads as follows:

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

The effect of this amendment, if adopted, would be to disfranchise for a period of over four years nine tenths of the voting population of eleven States. Does any sane man believe such terms would bo accepted? When in the history of nations did a free people voluntarily consent to such a degradation? It is a condition which could not be accepted with honor, and it is a condition, therefore, which is not fit to be proposed to any American community by an American Congress.

But it is said that we have the rightful power to impose such a condition. If we had, its exercise would still be most unwise. It needs no argument to demonstrate that in statesmanship magnanimity is a nobler quality, and withal a sounder policy, than tyranny; and that it is better for a Government to call forth blessings by its clemency than to provoke the curses of a people by its oppression.

But I deny altogether the right of the Federal Government to disfranchise the majority of the .citizens of any State on account of their past participation in the rebellion. They who have committed treason are amenable to the laws, even after they have returned to their allegiance. But you cannot make new laws and a new Constitution to meet their case. Treason is undoubtedly a crime and may be punished, but by no bill of attainder or ex post facto law such as is provided in the amendment before the House.

The ninth section of the first article of the Constitution declares—"

No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall bo passed."

That single prohibition is in itself a complete answer to all that has been said in support of the doctrine of the reconstruction committee. If any further answer were needed, it would be found in the ninth and tenth articles of the same instrument:

"Art. 9. The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not bo construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

"Art. 10. The powers not delegated to the United States are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

It will not do to say that the civil war has abrogated the constitutional rights of rebellious citizens, and that vengeance beyond the boundaries of what is written is to be justified to the Federal Government by right of conquest. Not only is such a doctrine opposed by the express prohibitions of the Constitution, but Congress and the whole nation stand pledged before the world against any such interpretation. After the civil war had commenced, and after a great battle had been fought, Congress passed through both Houses, by an almost unanimous vote, the following resolution: