Ruger appointed Governor, and Brevet Captain Charles F. Rockwell to be treasurer of Georgia.

February 28 All civil courts and officers whose duty it is to provide for the relief of paupers, shall extend relief to all persons entitled to relief, as such, without any discrimination as to race or color. . . .

March 18 In all the jails and other prisons, colored prisoners are to receive the same food, in quality and quantity, as white prisoners, and the sheriffs shall get the same fees for victualling all classes of prisoners. March 26 Freedmen being threatened with discharge, "for the purpose of controlling their votes, or of restraining them from voting," bureau officers were directed by the superintendent of registration, E. Hulbert, to report all cases of interference with their political rights. .

Fourth Military District - Mississippi and Arkansas. . . .

July 29 [1867]-An order issued notifying all State and municipal officers that any attempt to render nugatory the action of Congress designed to promote the better government of the rebel States, by speeches or demonstrations at public meetings in opposition thereto, will be deemed sufficient cause for their summary removal. The same prohibition in regard to speeches will be applied to all officers holding appointments from these headquarters, and to officers of the army in this district. . . .

September 6-Where a person, indicted for a criminal offence, can prove by two credible witnesses that he was a loyal man during the rebellion, believes that he cannot by reason of that fact get a fair and impartial trial by jury, the court will not proceed to try the case, but the papers shall be transmitted to these headquarters. As freed people bear their share of taxation, no denial to them of the benefit of those laws will be tolerated, and a refusal or neglect to provide properly for colored paupers will be treated as a dereliction of official duty. . . .

December 5 It was ordered that, in consequence of stolen goods being sold or delivered after dark, traders and all other parties are forbid purchasing or delivering country supplies after sunset till market hour in the morning, and making such sale or delivery a military offence. . .

Fifth Military District-Louisiana and Texas. . . .

April 8 [1867]—An election in the parish of Livingston, Louisiana, annulled.

April 27 General Griffin, reciting that persons disqualified by law are drawn to serve as jurors in the civil courts of Texas, directed that hereafter no person shall be eligible to serve as a juryman until he shall have taken the test-oath of July 2, 1862.

...

May 2... New Orleans. . . . The mayor, Edward Heath, ordered to adjust the police force so that at least one-half shall be composed of ex-Union soldiers. . . .

May 25― Collection of taxes in Texas levied during the rebellion prohibited.

July 30-J. W. Throckmorton, Governor of Texas, removed as an impediment to reconstruction, and E. M. Pease appointed.

Aug. 8- Judge Edward Dougherty, 12th district of Texas, removed for denying the supremacy of the laws of Congress, and Edward Basse appointed.

Edward McPherson, A Hand Book of Politics for 1868 (Washington, 1868), 316-323 passim.

154. Issue in the Impeachment of the President

(1868)

BY MANAGER BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BUTLER AND WILLIAM

MAXWELL EVARTS

The impeachment of the president was the climax of the strife between him and Congress growing out of the reconstruction measures (see No. 148 above), although the alleged ground of impeachment was but indirectly connected with these measures. Evarts, then recognized as one of the first lawyers in the country, was Johnson's leading defender. Butler was one of the managers of the impeachment for the House; his political affiliations were at that time with the radical Republicans. — For Butler, see No. 124 above. — Bibliography as in No. 145 above.

HE CHIEF JUSTICE. Senators, the Chief Justice . . . will . . . direct the Secretary to read the offer to prove, and will then submit the question directly to the Senate.

The chief clerk read the offer, as follows:

We offer to prove that at the meetings of the cabinet at which Mr. Stanton was present, held while the tenure-of-civil-office bill was before the President for approval, the advice of the cabinet in regard to the same was asked by the President and given by the cabinet, and thereupon the question whether Mr. Stanton and the other Secretaries who had received their appointment from Mr. Lincoln were within the restrictions upon the President's power of removal from office created by said act was considered, and the opinion expressed that the Secretaries appointed by Mr. Lincoln were not within such restrictions.

The yeas and nays were ordered, and being taken resulted - yeas 22, nays 26. . . .

So the evidence proposed to be offered was decided to be inadmissible. Mr. EVARTS, (to the witness.) Mr. Welles, at any of the cabinet meetings held between the time of the passage of the civil-tenure act and the removal of Mr. Stanton, did the subject of the public service as affected by the operation of that act come up for the consideration of the cabinet? .

The WITNESS. I answer yes.

By Mr. EVARTS:

Q. Was it considered repeatedly?

A. It was on two occasions, if not more.

Q. During those considerations and discussions was the question of the importance of having some determination judicial in its character of the constitutionality of this law considered?

Mr. Manager BUTLER. Stay a moment; we object. . . .

The CHIEF JUSTICE. If the question be objected to it will be reduced to writing.

The offer was handed to the desk and read, as follows:

We offer to prove that at the cabinet meetings between the passage of the tenureof-civil-office bill and the order of the 21st of February, 1868, for the removal of Mr. Stanton, upon occasions when the condition of the public service as affected by the operation of that bill came up for the consideration and advice of the cabinet, it was considered by the President and cabinet that a proper regard to the public service made it desirable that upon some proper case a judicial determination on the constitutionality of the law should be obtained.

Mr. Manager BUTLER. Mr. President and Senators, we, of the managers, object, and we should like to have this question determined in the minds of the senators upon this principle. We understand here that the determination of the Senate is, that cabinet discussions, of whatever nature, shall not be put in as a shield to the President. That I understand, for one, to be the broad principle upon which this class of questions stand and upon which the Senate has voted; and, therefore, these attempts to get around it, to get in by detail and at retail — if I may use that expression - evidence which in its wholesale character cannot be admitted, are simply tiring out and wearing out the patience of the Senate. I should like to have it settled, once for all, if it can be, whether the cabinet consultations upon any subject are to be a shield. Upon this particular offer, however, I will leave the matter with the Senate after a single suggestion.

It is offered to show that the cabinet consulted upon the desirability of getting up a case to test the constitutionality of the law. It is either material or immaterial. It might possibly be material in one view if they mean to say that they consulted upon getting up this case in the mode and manner that it is brought here, and only in that event could it be material. Does the question mean to ask if they consulted and agreed together to bring up this case in the form in which it has been done? If they agreed upon any other proceeding it is wholly immaterial; but if they agreed upon this case, then we are in this condition of things, that they propose to justify the President's act by the advice of his subordinates, and substitute their opinion upon the legality of his action in this case for yours.

Senators, you passed this tenure-of-office act. That might have been done by inadvertence. The President then presented it to you for your revision, and you passed it again notwithstanding his constitutional argument upon it. The President then removed Mr. Stanton, and presented its unconstitutionality again, and presented also the question whether Mr. Stanton was within it, and you, after solemn deliberation and argument, again decided that Mr. Stanton was within its provisions so as to be protected by it, and that the law was constitutional. Then he removed Mr. Stanton on the 21st of February, and presented the same question to you again; and again, after solemn argument, you decided that Mr. Stanton was within its provisions and that the law was constitutional. Now they offer to show the discussions of the cabinet upon its constitutionality to overrule the quadruple opinion solemnly expressed by the Senate upon these very questions — four times upon the constitutionality of the law, and twice upon its constitutionality and upon the fact that Mr. Stanton was within it. Is that testimony to be put in here? The proposition whether it was desirable to have this constitutional question raised is the one presented. If it was any other constitutional question in any other case, then it is wholly immaterial. If it is this case, then you are trying that question, and they propose to substitute the judgment of the cabinet for the judgment of the Senate. Mr. EVARTS.... Now, senators, the proposition can be very briefly submitted to you.

By decisive determinations upon certain questions of evidence arising in this cause, you have decided that, at least, what in point of time is so near to this action of the President as may fairly import to show that in his action he was governed by a desire to raise a question for judicial

determination, shall be admitted. About that there can be no question that the record will confirm my statement. Now, my present inquiry is to show that within this period, thus extensively and comprehensively named for the present, in his official duty and in his consultations concerning his official duty with the heads of departments, it became apparent that the operation of this law raised embarrassments in the public service, and rendered it important as a practical matter that there should be a determination concerning the constitutionality of the law, and that it was desirable that upon a proper case such a determination should be had. I submit the matter to the Senate with these observations. . . .

The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted yeas 19,

nays 30.

So the Senate ruled the offer to be inadmissible.

Trial of Andrew Johnson . . . before the Senate . on Impeachment by the House of Representatives for High Crimes and Misdemeanors (Washington, 1868), I, 696–700 passim.

155. The Fifteenth Amendment (1869)

BY SENATOR HENRY WILSON

Although Wilson entered the Senate, in 1855, with the reputation of a skilful politician who had made use of the Know-Nothing movement in order to float himself into office, his early and earnest attachment to the anti-slavery cause, and his great faith in the success of the Republican party, soon secured for him recognition as a worthy colleague of Sumner. His loyalty to freedom and the negro race continued during the reconstruction period, at the end of which he was elected vice-president. This extract is from a speech in the Senate. - Bibliography as in No. 145 above.

ST

IR, it is now past six o'clock in the morning - a continuous session of more than eighteen hours. For more than seventeen hours the ear of the Senate has been wearied and pained with anti-republican, inhuman, and unchristian utterances, with the oft-repeated warnings, prophecies, and predictions, with petty technicalities, and carping criticisms. The majority in this Chamber, in the House, and in the country, too, have been arraigned, assailed, and denounced, their ideas, principles, and policies misrepresented, and their motives questioned. Sir, will our assailants never forget anything nor learn anything? Will they never see themselves as others see them? Year after year they have continuously and vehemently, as grand historic questions touching the interests of the