History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States Part 21

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

"The honorable member referred to the act of 1790, but it relates entirely to different subjects, and all the statutes to which he adverted are statutes of the same description. What is the twenty-sixth section of the act of 1790 to which he referred? The preceding section provided that no one should sue a foreign minister, and the section to which my friend referred particularly, said that if a party did sue a foreign minister he should be liable to be punished.

Certainly; but why? Because the Government of the United States was vested with the exclusive authority in all cases depending upon the law of nations; and the law of nations saving from responsibility emba.s.sadors accredited to the United States, for civil debts, he who attempted to interfere offended against the Government, and he offended in relation to a subject exclusively committed to the General Government. The power, therefore, which Congress exerted in the particular legislation to which the honorable member reverted is just the power which they exert when they provide for the punishment of any man who counterfeits the currency of the United States, or forges its paper, or forges its bonds, or interferes with the administration of the Post-office Department. These are all powers incidental to the possession of the express power, and in the case to which he adverted the express power was one necessarily belonging to the Government, because it was a power belonging to and regulated by the law of nations, and not by any munic.i.p.al regulation.

"The honorable member from Illinois tells us that the President's objection, that there are eleven States not now represented, is ent.i.tled to no consideration whatever. The honorable member seems to suppose that the President adverted to the fact that there were eleven States not represented as showing that Congress possessed no const.i.tutional authority to legislate upon the subject, supposing that they would have had the authority if those States were represented.

That is not the view taken by the President; it is an entire misapprehension of the doctrine of the President. He says no such thing, and he intimates no such thing. But a.s.suming, what in another part of the message he denies, that the authority might be considered as existing, he submits as a question of policy whether it is right to change the whole domestic economy of those eleven States, in the absence of any representation upon this floor from them. My honorable friend asks whose fault it is that they are not represented. Why are they not here? He says their hands are reeking with the blood of loyal men; that they are unable to take the oath which a statute that he a.s.sumes to be const.i.tutional has provided; and he would have the country and the Senate to believe that that is the reason why they are not here. Is that the fact, Mr. President? These States are organized, and how organized? What have they done? They have abolished slavery by an astonishing unanimity; they have abolished nearly all the distinctions which antecedently existed between the two races. They have permitted the negroes to sue, they have permitted them to testify; they have not yet permitted them to vote.

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

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

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

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

"'While they [negroes] were slaves, it was a very different question; but now, when slavery is terminated, and by terminating it you have got rid of the only obstacle in the way of citizenship, two questions arise: first, Whether that fact itself does not make them citizens? Before they were not citizens, because of slavery, and only because of slavery. Slavery abolished, why are they not just as much citizens as they would have been had slavery never existed?

My opinion is that they become citizens, and I hold that opinion so strongly that I should consider it unnecessary to legislate on the subject at all, as far as that cla.s.s is concerned, but for the ruling of the Supreme Court, to which I have adverted.'

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

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

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

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

"No," replied Mr. Johnson; "on another bill." He continued: "What I maintain is this--and I have never doubted it, because I entertained the same opinion when I made those remarks that I entertain now--that citizenship of the United States, in consequence of birth, does not make a party a citizen of the State in which he is born unless the Const.i.tution and laws of the State recognize him as a citizen. Now, what does this bill propose? All born within the United States are to be considered citizens of the United States, and as such shall have in every State all the rights that belong to any body else in the State as far as the particular subjects stated in the bill are concerned.

Now, I did suppose, and I shall continue to suppose, it to be clear, unless I am met with the almost paramount authority of the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, that citizenship, by way of birth, conferred on the party as far as he and the United States were concerned, is not a citizenship which ent.i.tles him to the privilege of citizenship within the State where he is born; if it be true, and I submit that it is true beyond all doubt, that over the question of State citizenship the authority of the State Government is supreme.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, spoke in favor of the veto, premising that his words, "if they are not to convince any body in the Senate, may go to the country and be reflected on there." Mr. Cowan said he was quite willing that all the people of this country should enjoy the rights conferred upon them by this bill. But, supposing the bill had all the merit in the world, it would not be effective to attain the ends hoped for by its friends; and apart from that, its provisions were exceedingly dangerous. It gave married women and minors the right to make and enforce contracts. The grammatical structure of a portion of the bill was such as to enable a corrupt, pa.s.sionate, or prejudiced judge to take advantage of it in order to widen the jurisdiction of the United States courts, and drag into them all the business which had heretofore occupied the State courts. This would be enough in this nineteenth century to make a man tremble for the fate of const.i.tutional government. "If," said Mr. Cowan, "we had undoubted authority to pa.s.s this bill, under the circ.u.mstances I would not vote for it, on account of its objectionable phraseology, its dubious language, and the mischief which might attend upon a large and liberal construction of it in the District and Circuit Courts of the United States." The trouble and expense of obtaining justice in the United States courts, but one, or at most two existing in any of the Southern States, would debar the African from applying to them for redress.

"Your remedy," said the Senator, "is delusive; your remedy is no remedy at all; and to hold it up to the world as a remedy is a gross fraud, however pious it may be. It is no remedy to the poor debtor that you prosecute his judge, and threaten him with fine and imprisonment. It is no remedy to the poor man with a small claim that you locate a court one or two hundred miles away from him which is so expensive in its administration of justice that he can not enter there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WM. M. Stewart, Senator from Nevada.]

"There is another provision of the bill, which, notwithstanding the act of Congress relied upon by the honorable Senator from Illinois, I think is unquestionably anomalous, and to me not only anomalous, but atrocious; and that is, the subst.i.tution of an indictment for the writ of error. What has been the law of these United States heretofore?

When an act of Congress came in contact with a State law, and the judge of a State court decided that the law of Congress was unconst.i.tutional, there was an appeal given to the debated party to the Supreme Court of the United States in order to determine the const.i.tutionality of the law. But, sir, who, until the last few months, ever heard of making the judge a criminal because he decided against the const.i.tutionality of a law of the United States? One would think we were being transported back to the dark ages of the world when a man is to be accused and perhaps convicted of a crime who has done nothing more than honestly and conscientiously discharged his duty. I know that the persons of emba.s.sadors are sacred, and I know that it is a very high offense against the law of nations, which no civil judge of any court could justify, to invade this sacred right of the emba.s.sador, but every body knows that that is an exceptional case.

Every body knows that in all times and at all ages the judge was punishable who did not respect the person of an emba.s.sador. But that is not this case. That a.n.a.logy will not help the third section of this bill. It is openly avowed upon the floor of the Senate of the United States, in the year of our Lord 1866, in the full blaze and light of the nineteenth century, that the indictment is to be a subst.i.tute for the writ of error, and it is justified because a judge ought to be indicted who violates the sacred person of an emba.s.sador! What potency there must be in the recent amendment of the Const.i.tution which has foisted the negro and set him upon the same platform as the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of Great Britain or of all the Russias to the United States of America, and made him as sacred as an emba.s.sador, and the judge who decides against him is to be punished as a criminal!"

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

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

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

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

We who are to judge of the forms of government under which States shall exist; we, who are the only power that is charged with this great question, are to be somehow or other wheedled out of it by the President by reason of the authority that he sets up.

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

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

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

"The followers of Ahriman always appealed to the same spirit manifested by the Senator from Ohio. Death is to be one of his angels now to redeem the Const.i.tution and the laws, and to establish liberty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I defended the candidate of the Republican party against that a.s.sault, and I defend the President of the Republican party against the a.s.sault of yesterday.

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

"Mr. President, I am not as conversant with the const.i.tuency of the Senator from Ohio as he is, but I venture the a.s.sertion that outside of New England there is not a single Northern State in this Union but will by a majority vote to indorse the policy of reconstruction advised by President Johnson and expressed in that joint resolution.

You can not carry before the people of this country suffrage to the unqualified black man. You can not find a State in this Union outside of New England, in my judgment, that will indorse that policy.

Restrict it to a qualification clause, as the President of the United States recommends, and you can carry the Republican Union party every-where, and with unanimity.

"The President of the United States 'a despot' for exercising a const.i.tutional right in vetoing a bill pa.s.sed by Congress! Mr.

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

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

"I do not believe that his const.i.tuents will be quite satisfied with so broad a declaration, that he is to wear any man's collar, and follow him wherever he may go. Did I use harsh language toward the President yesterday? All that I said I stand by to-day and forever.

What was the question upon which I made those observations, and what has been the opinion of the President heretofore? what has been his action since? Here are three million people, our friends, friends to the Government, who generously came forward in its difficulty, and helped us throughout the war, sacrificed their blood and their lives to maintain the issue on our side, and who were faithful beyond all men that were ever faithful before, to us during the whole of the difficulty, every-where a.s.sisting our brave soldiers in the field, laying down their lives to maintain our principles, and ministering in every way to the misfortunes of our brave men whenever they fell into the hands of those worse than savages with whom we were warring; and now these men are laboring, are under one of the most frightful despotisms that ever settled down upon the heads of mankind. Three million people are exposed to the outrages, the insolence, the murder of those worse than savages, their former masters, murdered as we hear every day, oppressed every-where, their rights taken away, their manhood trampled under foot; and Congress, under the Const.i.tution of the United States, endeavors to extend to them some little protection, and how are we met here? Every attempt of your Moses has been to trample them down worse, and to throw every obstruction in the way of any relief that could be proposed by Congress. He has from all appearances become their inveterate and relentless foe, making violent war upon any member of Congress who dares raise his voice or give his vote in favor of any measure having for its object the amelioration of the condition of these poor people. Talk to me about the President being their friend! When did it ever happen before that a great measure of relief to suffering humanity on as broad a scale as this was met by the stern veto of the President of the United States, and without being able when he undertakes to make his obstruction to our measures to designate a single clause of the Const.i.tution that he pretends has been violated.

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

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

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