History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States Part 37

"For three days the Senate-chamber was silent, but the discussions were transferred to another room of the Capitol, with closed doors and darkened windows, where party leaders might safely contend for a political and party policy. When Senators returned to their seats, I was curious to observe who had won and who lost in the party lottery.

The dark brow of the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. Clark] was lighted with a gleam of pleasure. His proposed subst.i.tute for the third section was the marked feature of the measure. But upon the lofty brow of the Senator from Nevada [Mr. Stewart] there rested a cloud of disappointment and grief. His bantling, which he had named universal amnesty and universal suffrage, which he had so often dressed and undressed in the presence of the Senate, the darling offspring of his brain, was dead; it had died in the caucus; and it was left to the sad Senator only to hope that it might not be his last. Upon the serene countenance of the Senator from Maine, the Chairman of the Fifteen, there rested the composure of the highest satisfaction; a plausible political platform had been devised, and there was yet hope for his party."

On the 30th of May, the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, proceeded in the consideration of the const.i.tutional amendment. The several clauses were taken up separately and in order.

Mr. Doolittle was desirous of amending the first section, relating to the rights of citizens, by inserting a clause excepting from its operation "Indians not taxed." His proposition was rejected.

"The Committee of Fifteen," said Mr. Doolittle, referring to the Civil Rights Bill, "fearing that this declaration by Congress was without validity unless a const.i.tutional amendment should be brought forward to enforce it, have thought proper to report this amendment."

"I want to say to the honorable Senator," Mr. Fessenden replied, "that he is drawing entirely upon his imagination. There is not one word of correctness in all that he is saying; not a particle; not a scintilla; not the beginning of truth."

The first and second sections of the amendment were accepted in Committee of the Whole, with little further attempt at alteration.

The third section, cutting off late Confederate officials from eligibility to Federal offices, provoked repeated attempts to modify and emasculate it. Among them was a motion by Mr. Saulsbury to amend the final clause by adding that the President, by the exercise of the pardoning power, may remove the disability.

It augured the final success of the entire amendment in the Senate, that the numerous propositions to amend, made by those unfavorable to the measure, were voted down by majorities of more than three-fourths.

Mr. Doolittle, speaking in opposition to the third section, said that it was putting a new punishment upon all persons embraced within its provisions. "If," said he, "by a const.i.tutional amendment, you impose a new punishment upon offenders who are guilty of crime already, you wipe out the old punishment as to them. Now, I do not propose to wipe out the penalties that these men have incurred by their treason against the Government. I would punish a sufficient number of them to make treason odious."

"How many would you like to hang?" asked Mr. Nye.

"You stated the other day that five or six would be enough to hang,"

replied Mr. Doolittle.

"Do you acquiesce in that?" asked Mr. Nye.

"I think I ought to be satisfied," replied Mr. Doolittle, "if you are satisfied with five or six.

"The insertion of this section," said Mr. Doolittle, continuing his remarks, "tends to prevent the adoption of the amendment by a sufficient number of States to ratify it. What States to be affected by this amendment will ratify it?"

"Four will accept that part of it," said Mr. James H. Lane.

"What four?" asked Mr. Doolittle.

"Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana," replied Mr. Lane. "I saw some gentlemen on Monday from Tennessee, who told me that this particular clause would be the most popular thing that could be tendered. And the very men that you want to hang ought to accept it joyfully in lieu of their hanging." [Laughter.]

"I do not know who those particular gentlemen were," said Mr.

Doolittle. "Were they the gentlemen that deserved hanging or not?"

"They were Conservatives from Tennessee," replied Mr. Lane.

"I deem this section as the adoption of a new punishment as to the persons who are embraced within its provisions," said Mr. Doolittle.

"They seem to have peculiar notions in Wisconsin in regard to officers," said Mr. Trumbull; "and the Senator who has just taken his seat regards it as a punishment that a man can not hold an office.

Why, sir, how many suffering people there must be in this land! He says this is a bill of pains and penalties because certain persons can not hold office; and he even seems to think it would be preferable, in some instances, to be hanged. He wants to know of the Senator from Ohio if such persons are to be excepted. This clause, I suppose, will not embrace those who are to be hanged. When hung, they will cease to suffer the pains and penalties of being kept out of office.

"Who ever heard of such a proposition as that laid down by the Senator from Wisconsin, that a bill excluding men from office is a bill of pains, and penalties, and punishment? The Const.i.tution of the United States declares that no one but a native born citizen of the United States shall be President of the United States. Does, then, every person living in this land who does not happen to have been born within its jurisdiction undergo pains, and penalties, and punishment all his life because by the Const.i.tution he is ineligible to the Presidency? This is the Senator's position."

Mr. Willey spoke in favor of the pending clause of the joint resolution. "I hope," said he, "that we shall hear no more outcry about the injustice, the inhumanity, and the want of Christian spirit in thus incorporating into our Const.i.tution precautionary measures that will forever prohibit these unfaithful men from again having any part in the Government."

"The honorable Senator," remarked Mr. Davis in reply, "is a professor of the Christian religion, a follower of the lowly and humble Redeemer; but it seems to me that he forgot all the spirit of his Christian charity and faith in the tenor of the remarks which he made."

"This cry for blood and vengeance," exclaimed Mr. Saulsbury, "can not last forever. The eternal G.o.d who sits above, whose essence is love, and whose chief attribute is mercy, says to all his creatures, whether in the open daylight or in the silent hours of the night, 'Be charitable; be merciful.'"

Mr. Doolittle proposed two amendments to section three: the first to limit its application to those who "_voluntarily_ engaged in rebellion," and the second to except those "who have duly received amnesty and pardon."

These propositions were both rejected by large majorities, only ten Senators voting for them. The third section, as proposed by Mr.

Howard, was then adopted by a vote of thirty against ten.

The death of General Scott having been the occasion of an adjournment of Congress, the consideration of the const.i.tutional amendment was not resumed until the 4th of June. Mr. Hendricks moved to amend by including in the basis of representation in the Southern States three-fifths of the freedmen. Mr. Van Winkle offered an amendment providing that no person not excluded from office by the terms of the third section shall be liable to any disability or penalty for treason after a term of years. Both of these propositions were rejected by the Senate.

On the 5th of June, Mr. Poland, Mr. Stewart, and Mr. Howe addressed the Senate in favor of the const.i.tutional amendment. Mr. Poland did not expect to be able to say any thing after six months' discussion of this subject. He took more hopeful views of the President's tractability than many others. "Although these propositions," said he, "may not, in all respects, correspond with the views of the President, I believe he will feel it to be his patriotic duty to acquiesce in the plan proposed, and give his powerful influence and support to procure their adoption."

"While it is not the plan that I would have adopted," said Mr.

Stewart, "still it is the best that I can get, and contains many excellent provisions."

"I shall vote for the Const.i.tutional amendment," said Mr. Howe, "regretfully, but not reluctantly. I shall vote for it regretfully, because it does not meet the emergency as I hoped the emergency would be met; but I shall not vote for it reluctantly, because it seems to me just now to be the only way in which the emergency can be met at all."

An issue of some personal interest arose between Mr. Howe and his colleague, Mr. Doolittle, which led them somewhat aside from the regular channel of discussion.

"He has been a most fortunate politician," said Mr. Howe, "always to happen to have just those convictions which bore the highest price in the market."

"That I ever intended in the slightest degree," replied Mr. Doolittle, "to swerve in my political action for the sake of offices or the price of offices in the market, is a statement wholly without foundation."

Mr. Howe had said in substance that in 1848 Mr. Doolittle was acting with the Free Democratic party in New York, which was stronger than the Democratic party in that State. In 1852, when he left the Free Democratic party, and acted with the Democratic party in Wisconsin, the Democratic party was in the majority in that State. He did not leave the Democratic party and join the Republican party in 1854, but only in 1856, and then Wisconsin was no longer a Democratic State.

Mr. Doolittle, after having given a detailed account of his previous political career, remarked: "During the last six months, in the State of Wisconsin, no man has struggled harder than I have struggled to save the Union party, to save it to its platform, to save it to its principles, to save it to its supremacy. For six months, from one end of Wisconsin to the other--ay, from Boston to St. Paul--by every one of a certain cla.s.s of newspapers I have been denounced as a traitor to the Union party because I saved it from defeat. Sir, it is not the first time in the history of the world that men have turned in to crucify their savior."

On the same day, June 6th, Messrs. Hendricks, Sherman, Cowan, and others having partic.i.p.ated in the discussion, the Senate voted on another amendment offered by Mr. Doolittle, apportioning Representatives, after the census of 1870, according to the number of legal voters in each State by the laws thereof. This proposition was rejected--yeas, 7; nays, 31.

On the 7th of June, Mr. Garrett Davis occupied the entire time devoted to the const.i.tutional amendment in opposing that measure, denouncing Congress, and praising the President. "There is a very great state of backwardness," said he, "in both houses of Congress in relation to the transaction of the legitimate, proper, and useful portion of the public business; but as to the business that is of an illegitimate and mischievous character, and that is calculated to produce results deleterious to the present and the future of the whole country, there has been a good deal, much too much, of progress made."

Of President Johnson Mr. Davis said: "He seems to be the man for the occasion; and his ability, resources, courage, and patriotism have developed to meet its great demands. If this ark which holds the rights and liberties of the American people is to be rescued and saved, he will be one of the chief instruments in the great work, and his glory and fame will be deathless."

On the 8th of June, the last day of the discussion, the const.i.tutional amendment was opposed by Messrs. Johnson, McDougall, and Hendricks, and defended by Messrs. Henderson, Yates, and Howard.

"Let us bring back the South," said Mr. Johnson, in closing his remarks, "so as to enable her to remove the desolation which has gone through her borders, restore her industry, attend to her products, instead of keeping her in a state of subjection without the slightest necessity. Peace once existing throughout the land, the restoration of all rights brought about, the Union will be at once in more prosperous existence than it ever was; and throughout the tide of time, as I believe, nothing in the future will ever cause us to dream of dissolution, or of subjecting any part, through the powerful instrumentality of any other part, to any dishonoring humiliation."

"I went down once on the Mississippi," remarked Mr. McDougall, "at the opening of the war. I met a general of the Confederate army, and I took him by the hand and took him to my state-room, on board of my gun-boat. Said he, 'General,' throwing his arms around me, 'how hard it is that you and I have to fight.' That was the generosity of a combatant. I repeated to him, 'It is hard,' and he and I drank a bottle of wine or two--just as like as not. [Laughter.] This thing of bearing malice is one of the wickedest sins that men can bear under their clothes."

Speaking of the third section, which had encountered great opposition, as inflicting undue punishment upon prominent rebels, Mr. Henderson said: "If this provision be all, it will be an act of the most stupendous mercy that ever mantled the crimes of rebellion."

"Let us suppose a case," said Mr. Yates. "Here is a man--Winder, or d.i.c.k Turner, or some other notorious character. He has been the cause of the death of that boy of yours. He has shot at him from behind an ambuscade, or he has starved him to death in the Andersonville prison, or he has made him lie at Belle Isle, subject to disease and death from the miasma by which he was surrounded. When he is upon trial and the question is, 'Sir, are you guilty, or are you not guilty?' and he raises his blood-stained hands, deep-dyed in innocent and patriotic blood, the Senator from Pennsylvania rises and says, 'For G.o.d's sake!

do not deprive him of the right to go to the legislature.' The idea is that if a man has forfeited his life, it is too great a punishment to deprive him of the privilege of holding office."

Speaking of radicalism, Mr. Yates remarked: "My fear is not that this Congress will be too radical; I am not afraid of this Congress being shipwrecked upon any proposition of radicalism; but I fear from timid and cowardly conservatism which will not risk a great people to take their destiny in their own hands, and to settle this great question upon the principles of equality, justice, and liberality. That is my fear."

Mr. Doolittle moved that the several sections of the amendment be submitted to the States as separate articles. This motion was rejected--yeas, 11; nays, 33.

The vote was finally taken upon the adoption of the const.i.tutional amendment as a whole. It pa.s.sed the Senate by a majority of more than two-thirds, as follows: