Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, said: "The principle of this bill is contained in the first two lines of the preamble. It is founded upon the proclamation of the President and Secretary of State inade just after the assassination of President Lincoln, in which they declared specifically that the rebellion had overthrown all civil governments in the insurrectionary States, and they proceeded by an executive mandate to create governments. They were provisional in their character, and dependent for their validity solely upon the action of Congress. These are propositions which it is not now necessary for me to demonstrate. Those governments have never been sanctioned by Congress nor by the people of the States in which they exist; that is, all the people.

"Taking that proclamation and the acknowledged fact that the people of the Southern States, the loyal people, whites and blacks, are not protected in their rights, but that an unusual and extraordinary number of cases occur of violence and murder and wrong, I do think it is the duty of the United States to protect those people in the enjoyment of substantial rights.

"Now, the first four sections of this substitute contain nothing but what is in the present law. There is not a single thing in the first four sections that does not now exist by law.

"The first section authorizes the division of the rebel States into military districts. That is being done daily.

"The second section acknowledges that the President is the commanding officer of the army, and it is made his duty to assign certain officers to those districts. That is clearly admitted to be right.

"The third section does no more than what the Supreme Court in its recent decision has decided could be done in a State in insurrection. The Supreme Court in its recent decision, while denying that a military tribunal could be organized in Indiana because it never had been in a state of insurrection, expressly declared that these tribunals might have been, and might now be, organized in insurrectionary States. There is nothing in this third section, in my judgment, that is not now and has not been done every month within the last twelve months by the President of the United States. The orders of General Sickles, and many other orders that I might quote, have gone further in punishment of crime than this section proposes.

"Now, in regard to the fourth section, that is a limitation upon the present law. Under the present law many executions of military tribunals are summarily carried out. This section requires all sentences of military tribunals which affect the liberty of the citizen to be sent to the commanding officer of the district. They must be approved by the commanding officer of the district; and so far as life is concerned the President may issue his order at any moment now, or after this bill passes,

directing that the military commander of the district shall not enforce a sentence of death until it is submitted to him, because the military officer is a mere subordinate of the President, remaining there at the pleasure of the President.

"There is nothing, therefore, in these sections that ought to alarm the nerves of my friend from Pennsylvania or anybody else. I cannot think that these gentlemen are alarmed about the state of despotism that President Johnson is to establish in the Southern States. I do not feel alarmed; nor do I see any thing in these sections as they now stand that need endanger the rights of the most timid citizen of the United States. They are intended to protect a race of people who are now without protection, and they are not intended to oppress anybody who now can oppress.

"Now, in regard to the fifth section, which is the main and material feature of this bill, I think it is right that the Congress of the United States, before its adjournment, should designate some way by which the Southern States may reorganize loyal State governments in harmony with the Constitution and laws of the United States and the sentiment of the people, and find their way back to these halls. My own judgment is that that fifth section will point out a clear, easy, and right way for these States to be restored to their full power in the Government. All that it demands of the people of the Southern States is to extend to all their male citizens, without distinction of race or color, the elective franchise. It is now too late in the day to be frightened by this simple proposition. Senators can make the most of it as a political proposition. Upon that we are prepared to meet them. But it does point out a way by which the twenty absent Senators and the fifty absent Representatives can get back to these halls, and there is no other way by which they can justly do it.

"It seems to me that this is the whole substance of the bill. All there is material in the bill is in the first two lines of the preamble and the fifth section, in my judgment. The first two lines may lay the foundation by adopting the proclamation issued first to North Carolina, that the rebellion had swept away all the civil governments in the Southern States; and the fifth section points out the mode by which the people of those States in their own manner, without any limitations or restrictions by, Congress, may get back to full representation in Congress. That is the view I take of this amended bill; and taking that view of it I see no reason in the world why we should not all go for it."

Mr. Buckalew: "Mr. President, the Senator from Ohio made a few remarks, which, in my opinion, ought not to go upon the record of the debates without a word in reply. He said that at the end of the war the present President of the United States, through the Secretary of! State, announced to the people of this country:

and to the world that the then existing governments in the South were unlawful, and commenced a proceeding for reëstablishing valid governments in that section of the country; and as I understand him, he places this amendment of his, that he proposes to make a law, upon the ground, at least to some extent, of that official declaration of the Chief Magistrate of the United States. In other words, the country is to understand and accept the position of the member who offers this proposition that this bill is based upon that executive action; that it is a natural, or at least a proper sequence from it.

"The Senator, in speaking, forgot that the State of Virginia reorganized had been set up long before, and that that organization yet continues. He forgot that Louisiana had been reorganized, and that that reorganization yet continues modified in form. He forgot that the same state of things existed with reference to the State of Arkansas, the reorganization of which was instigated by a communication from President Lincoln to General Steele, in command in that State. He forgot that Tennessee herself was in the same category. So that, as to a large part of the States of the South which had been concerned in the rebellion, they had been organized under new State authorities before the time which he mentioned; that is, before the close of the war; and as to those States, constituting a large part of the whole number, there was no executive declaration, no executive proceeding for their reorganization; but, on the contrary, they were then held, as they have since been held by the President of the United States, to be lawful State governments, and as such entitled to the respect, to the amity, or rather to the protection, of the Government of the United States. The Senator's argument therefore fails, for the enactment of this bill is applicable to all the States which I have enumerated save Ten

nessee.

Why, sir, let us go a step further. Not only was that the position of the present President with regard to these States, but in point of fact it was the position of his predecessor; for the State government in each one of the States which I have mentioned was organized under his administration at his instance, and under proclamations and messages which are known to the whole world. Mr. Lincoln announced to the inhabitants of all the States in insurrection that wherever in any State a number of legal voters, according to the qualifications which existed before the rebellion, not less than one-tenth in number, should organize a State government in conformity with the views which he stated, the government so organized should be recognized by the Government of the United States; and the Congress of the United States, by its silence, by its acquiescence, concurred in that public proclamation and declaration of his. I say, therefore, that at the conclusion of the war,

the time mentioned by the Senator from Ohio, and upon considerations connected with which he puts the measure now before the Senate, a large part of these States were acknowledged in the full sense by the executive department as the governments of those States, as they had been previously recognized by Mr. Lincoln when lie exercised the duties of that high office.

"I say, then, that the Senator from Ohio, standing here as the organ of those who introduce this measure and ask for our votes for it, is not justified by the facts in putting the enactment of this bill upon the ground which he has stated to the Senate in its justification. I go further. I say that the second or other ground which he stated is equally incorrect. He says that the Supreme Court has expressed an opinion which justifies this bill. Pray, when did it announce any such opinion or express any such sentiment! Certainly it was not in any of those recent cases which have attracted public attention and been the subject of vituperative denunciation in the country. It determined that military commissions in the State of Indiana were illegal because that State was not within the theatre of military operations. That conceded, impliedly at least, perhaps the court said so expressly, that such military commissions or military courts might be organized in States in rebellion, might be organized within the theatre of active hostilities, that they were an incident of military operations when warranted by the Rules and Articles of War or by the legislation of Congress. But, sir, that court in no part of either of the opinions delivered by it laid down the doctrine that military commissions might now be organized, as stated by the Senator from Ohio, in the States of the South. It did not enter upon that field of inquiry which has been entered upon by members of Congress at all. It did not cover it by its investigations. It did not explore it. It did not attempt to determine whether the war yet continued, as some gentlemen seem to think. It did not attempt to determine what was the present condition of those States in a political point of view, and very properly it refrained from that investigation, and that for two reasons: in the first place, because it is a political question, and therefore not appropriate to its examination unless brought before it directly and in such manner that it cannot evade it in a judicial investigation; in the next place, the case before it invited no such inquiry, and it made no such inquiry. I say the Senator from Ohio will search in vain in any of those opinions for any such doctrine as that which he has suggested, I presume without reflection, on the spur of the moment, in the⚫ heat of debate. So much in reply to the Senator from Ohio. His speech has led to these remarks, which I should not otherwise have made.

"There is, however, a question which I would desire to ask him. I perceive he is present. It

is, what is the signification of the expression used in the first line of this preamble? What is its meaning? The language is:

* 營

*

Whereas, no legal State governments now exist in the rebel States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas.

"What is meant by the expression 'legal State governments,' in this preamble? Does it mean that there is no government in existence in any one of these States which has a legal character, which can, in point of law, take jurisdiction, through its courts or through its political authorities, of rights of person or property, or of any other matter pertaining to the jurisdiction of a government within a State?" Mr. Sherman: "The view I take of it is the same that was taken by the President and Secretary of State when the proclamation of May, 1865, was issued, that the authorities of those States were overthrown by the act of rebellion, precisely like the case of the authority of a government being overthrown by the occupa tion of its territory by a hostile power. That does not disturb the courts, or the sheriff, or the ordinary operations of the law. The Senator from Indiana (Mr. Hendricks) stated properly the law, that where we occupy a conquered territory we occupy it subject to the local laws for the administration of private justice between man and man; for the disposition of rights of property, and for the punishment of crime. If this bill passes, the law will be administered there. But the legal State governments are the governments represented here in Congress. A legal State government is a government which forms a part of the United States. I agree with the President and Secretary of State in the proclamation to which I have referred, that that government there was overthrown; the rebellion overthrew all civil authority there; but the ordinary municipal regulations, administered by their courts and sheriffs and officers of justice, are not disturbed even by the occupation of an armed force. If the government of Great Britain should occupy the State ⚫of Ohio by her military power, and exclude the authority of the United States, that would not necessarily disturb the administration of justice, except so far as military law might be substituted for civil law. I think that is an answer to the Senator's question."

Mr. Buckalew: "Then I understand the Senator in general terms to hold that these are not State governments in the sense of the Constitution as entitled to representation in the Congress of the United States, holding that relation to the Union which is held by the States represented; but at the same time that they are governments for municipal or local purposes, if this government so chooses to treat them."

The Presiding Officer: "The question recurs on the amendment of the Senator from Ohio, as a substitute for the original bill after the enacting clause."

Mr. Hendricks: "I am not in favor of the original bill, nor of the substitute as an independent measure; but deeming the substitute less objectionable than the bill, I shall vote for it as an amendment."

The amendment was agreed to by the following vote:

YEAS-Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Cattell, Chandler, Conness, Cragin, Creswell, Fogg, Frelinghuysen, Grimes, Henderson, Hendricks, Howard, Howe, Kirkwood, Lane, Morgan, Morrill, Patterson, Poland, bull, Van Winkle, Wade, Willey, Williams, Wilson, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Ross, Sherman, Stewart, Trumand Yates-32.

NAYS-Messrs. Buckalew, Davis, and Saulsbury-3.

ABSENT-Messrs. Cowan, Dixon, Doolittle, EdJohnson, McDougall, Nesmith, Norton, Nye, Riddle, munds, Fessenden, Foster, Fowler, Guthrie, Harris, Sprague, and Sumner-17.

ment now pending in reference to the preamble. The Presiding Officer: "There is an amendThe question is on the amendment of the Senator from Ohio, which is, to strike out the preamble of the bill, and in lieu of it to insert the following:"

Whereas, no legal State governments or adequate protection for life or property now exists in the rebel States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas; and whereas it is necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in said States until loyal and republican State governments can be legally established; therefore

The amendment to the preamble was agreed to, and the bill reported to the Senate as amended and agreed to.

Mr. Doolittle, of Wisconsin,, offered the following as an additional section:

That no sentence of death, under the provision of this act, shall be carried into effect without the approval of the President.

It was agreed to-yeas 21, nays 16.

The bill was passed by the following vote:

YEAS-Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Cattell, Chandler, Conness, Cragin, Creswell, Fogg, Frelinghuysen, Grimes, Howard, Howe, Kirkwood, Lane, Morgan, Morrill, Poland, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Ross, Sherman, Stewart, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Wade, Willey, Wil hams, Wilson, and Yates-29.

NAYS-Messrs. Buckalew, Cowan, Davis, Doolittle, Hendricks, McDougall, Nesmith, Norton, Patterson, and Saulsbury-10.

ABSENT-Messrs. Dixon, Edmunds, Fessenden, Foster, Fowler, Guthrie, Harris, Henderson, Johnson, Nye, Riddle, Sprague, and Sumner-13.

In the House, on February 18th, the bill, as amended by the Senate, was considered. Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, moved that the amendments of the Senate be non-concurred in.

The pending question was upon concurring in the amendments of the Senate.

Mr. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, said: "I ask the House to consider the position in which we are placed at the present time. I make a remark which seems to be necessary, but not for any party purpose. Yet I cannot reach the object I have in view without stating a fact of

a party nature. That fact is that the majority here, representing the majority of the loyal people of this country, has the control of this government for a period of two years or more. We have every reason to believe that loyal ascendency in this country will be continued. "In any event, in those two years we ought to be able, and I am sure we shall be able, to reconstruct this government upon a loyal basis. But in any event, nothing worse can happen to us, and nothing worse can happen to the country, than the reconstruction of the government on a disloyal basis. If it is to be reconstructed upon a disloyal basis, there are two things which I seek: first, that we who believe ourselves to be loyal to the Government and to the country shall not in any degree be responsible for the reconstruction of this Government in the hands of disloyal men; and secondly, that if it is to be the fortune of this country that it shall be reconstructed upon a disloyal basis, and by the agency and under the control of disloyal men, then I desire to postpone that calamity to the latest day possible.

"I say, then, that if during this session, or during the existence of the Fortieth Congress, the majority act according to its means and its opportunities, it cannot fail to secure the reconstruction of these ten States and their restoration to the Union through the agency of loyal men and by loyal means.

"My objection to the proposed substitute of the Senate is fundamental-it is conclusive. It provides, if not in terms, at least in fact, by the measures which it proposes, to reconstruct those State governments at once through the agency of disloyal men. And I say that great fact, which if this substitute shall be concurred in will be near to us, ought to restrain us from any action in favor of this measure, though we be compelled on the 4th of March next to part without having done any thing whatever for the restoration of those States."

Mr. Stevens: "Mr. Speaker, I will occupy but a short time. This House, a few days ago, sent to the Senate a bill to protect loyal men in the Southern States. That bill proposed but a single object, the protection of the loyal men of the South from the anarchy and oppression that exist, and the murders which are every day perpetrated upon loyal men, without distinction of color. It did not attempt the difficult question of reconstructing these States, by establishing civil governments over them. The House thought it wise to leave that question until a Congress which is to come in could have a long time to consider the whole question. The bill which we passed had not in it one single phrase or word which looks to any thing but a police regulation for the benefit of these States.

"Now, what has the Senate done? It has sent back to us an amendment which contains every thing else but protection. It has sent us back a bill which raises the whole question in dispute, as to the best mode of reconstructing these States, by distant and future pledges

which this Congress has no authority to make, and no power to execute. What power has this Congress to say to a future Congress, when the Southern States have done certain things, you shall admit them, and receive their members into this House?

"Sir, it is idle to suppose that we are not assuming what is impudent in us, and what must be fruitless. What are we attempting to do ? The first grand amendment that strikes the eye in this bill is, that we take the management of these States from the General of the Army and put it into the hands of the President of the United States. No man doubts the constitutional authority of Congress to detail for particu lar service, or to authorize others to detail for particular service, particular officers of the army. But our friends who love this bill, love it now because the President is to execute it, as he has executed every law for the last two years, by the murder of Union men, and by despising Congress, and flinging into our teeth all that we seek to have done. That seems to be the sweetening ingredient in this bill for many of our friends around us. I do not of course believe any thing about these nightly meetings. I think the report on that subject is all fabrication. But, sir, if there were such things, this substitute that has come from the Senate would be the natural offspring of such an incubation.

“What is the fifth section of this substitute? Why is it incorporated here? It is that we may pledge this Government in future to all the traitors in rebeldom, so that hereafter there shall be no escape from it, whatever may happen. While they are not before us, while this Congress has nothing to do with them, we are promising them, we are holding out to them a pledge, that if they will do certain things therein mentioned, they shall come into this House, and act with us as loyal men. I know there is an impatience to bring in these chivalric gentlemen, lest they should not be here in time to vote for the next President of the United States, and, therefore, gentlemen postpone the regular mode of bringing up that question, and put it upon a police bill, in order that it may be carried through, so as to give them an opportunity to be here at the time they desire. Sir, while I am in favor of allowing them to come in as soon as they are fairly entitled, I do not profess to be very impatient to embrace them. I am not very anxious to see their votes cast along with others, to control the next election of President and Vice-President; therefore it is that my impatience is not so great as that of others.

"Mr. Speaker, there was a time when some people, and among them that good man who is now no more, carried, as I thought, the idea of reconstruction by loyal men rather to the extreme. The doctrine was once held, that in these outlawed communities of robbers, traitors, and murderers, so far as the real State was concerned, it consisted of the loyal men of

the community, and that the others counted for nothing. I do not say that I hold this doctrine, not being myself an extreme man; but it was held by gentlemen all around me, and it was held by the late President of the United States. But now the doctrine seems to be, that the State is composed of disloyal men and traitors. We ignore wholly the loyal element in all the States, and we are hurrying to introduce these disloyal men among us.

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"Mr. Speaker, why is it that we are so anxious to proclaim universal amnesty? Is there danger that somebody will be punished? Is there any fear that this nation will wake from its lethargy, and insist upon punishing, by fine, by imprisonment, by confiscation, and possibly by personal punishment, some of those who have murdered our brothers, our fathers, and our children? Is there any danger that such a spirit will be raised in this nation, a spirit which sleeps only here, and which no other nation ever before allowed to slumber? If there is such danger, if some punishment is dreaded by these men, does not this proposition protect them? The President has already, as far as he is able, pardoned these rebels, and restored to them their property which we confiscated by the act of 1862, and he has done it in defiance of law. Last Saturday, a gentleman came to me from Alexandria, with one of the judges there, and told me that a gentleman had obtained some $17,000 worth of property under a sale by the United States of rebel property, but the rebel owner had come with the pardon of the President, and the order for the restoration of the property in his hand; an ejectment suit had been brought, and beyond all question a recovery would be had. Sir, as far as I can ascertain, more than $2,000,000,000 of property belonging to the United States, confiscated not as rebel but as enemy's property, has been given back to enrich traitors. Our friends whose houses have been laid in ashes, whose farms have been robbed, whose cattle have been taken from them, are to suffer poverty and persecution, while Wade Hampton and his black-horse cavalry are to revel in their wealth, and traitors along the Mississippi valley are to enjoy their manors. Sir, God helping me and I live, there shall be a question propounded to this House and to this nation, whether a portion of the debt shall not be paid by the confiscated property of the rebels. But, sir, this prevents it all. This is helping the President to take from the people that which belongs to them, and giving it to confederate traitors.

"Now, sir, I have only a word or two more to say. If there is an order of a committee of conference, in two hours a bill can be framed and reported to this House free from all these difficulties, free from all this extraneous matter, which shall protect every loyal man in the Southern States and do no injustice to those who are disloyal. But, sir, pass this bill and you open the flood-gates of misery-you disgrace in my judgment the Congress of the Uni

ted States. I do hope some effort will be made to protect without endangering them."

Mr. Blaine, of Maine, said: "I shall direct myself to calling the attention of the House to the precise purport, object, and scope of the fifth section of the proposed substitute of the Senate, and to ascertain whether it is open to the objection which the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Stevens) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Boutwell) have alleged against it.

"In the first place, it demands of the people of the rebel States that they shall form a constitution of State government conforming in all respects to the Constitution of the United States. Next, that after that constitution is formed it shall be submitted for ratification to all the male citizens of the State, without any regard to race, color, or previous condition of servitude; no one is to be excluded from voting unless the convention which frames the constitution shall do as Tennessee did, disfranchise some of the citizens for treason and rebellion. Just the same authority, and just the same mode of exercising that authority, is conferred upon these ten States that Tennessee possessed and exercised. And I reply to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Stokes) by saying that Congress no more guarantees under this bill the right of any rebel in any State to vote than did Congress guarantee to the rebels in Tennessee the right to vote.

"Then, after the State constitution shall have been framed by the convention, submitted to the people, and adopted by the votes of all the male citizens, except such as may be disfranchised by reason of participation in rebellion, it must be submitted to Congress for examination and approval. And being brought here for examination and approval, I submit that what the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Stevens) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Boutwell) have said is mere bugaboo and scarecrow, because the inquest is left in our hands, plenary and absolute. And that inquest goes to every fact and every circumstance connected with the formation of the new constitution. If in the judgment of Congress any State constitution presented to it for examination and approval shall enfranchise rebels and endanger the stability of the State government by permitting it to fall into the hands of rebels, Congress I assume with all confidence will not approve it. But that question is one for the Fortieth Congress or some other to determine; and, as a member of the Fortieth Congress, speaking for myself alone, I am not afraid to trust the subject to their decision.

"After the constitution shall have been approved by Congress, what then? I wish to call the attention of the House to the fact that the constitutions of these States are to be examined separately and not all together. And if the new constitution of the State of Arkansas, for instance, shall be approved by Congress, then her people are to elect a Legislature under that