Twenty Years of Congress Volume Ii Part 14

It was made the duty of the General of the Army to a.s.sign to the command of each of said districts an officer not below the rank of Brigadier-general, and to detail a sufficient force to enable such officer to perform his duties and enforce his authority within the district to which he was a.s.signed. The protection of life and property, the suppression of insurrections, disorders, and violence, and the punishment of all criminals and disturbers of the public peace, were entrusted to the military authority, with the power to allow civil tribunals to take jurisdiction and try offenders; and if that was not sufficient in the officer's judgment, he was authorized to organize military commissions, "any thing in the const.i.tutions and laws of these so-called Confederate States to the contrary notwithstanding." It was further declared that all legislative acts or judicial processes to prevent the proceedings of such tribunals, and all interference by "said pretended State governments with the exercise of military authority under this Act, shall be void and have no effect." The courts and judicial officers of the United States were forbidden to issue writs of _habeas corpus_, except under certain restrictions which further established the military authority over the people. Prompt trials were guaranteed to all persons arrested, cruel and unusual punishments were forbidden, and no sentence could be executed until it was approved by the officer in command of the district.

Mr. Stevens, in his speech upon introducing the bill, did not attempt to conceal its positive and peremptory character. "It provides," said he, "that the ten disorganized States shall be divided into five military districts; that the Commander of the Army shall take charge of them, through his officers not below the rank of Brigadier-general, who shall have the general supervision of the peace, quiet and protection of the people, loyal and disloyal, who reside within those precincts; and that to do so, he may use, as the law of nations would authorize him to do, the legal tribunals whenever he may deem them competent; but these tribunals are to be considered of no validity _per se_, of no intrinsic force, of no force in consequence of their origin; the question being wholly within the power of the conqueror, and to remain until that conqueror shall permanently supply their place with something else. That is the whole bill. It does not need much examination. One night's rest after its reading is enough to digest it."

Mr. Brandegee of Connecticut followed Mr. Stevens in a speech strongly supporting the measure. "Mr. Speaker, something must be done," said he. "The American people demand that we shall do something, and quickly. Already fifteen hundred Union men have been ma.s.sacred in cold blood (more than the entire population of some of the towns in my district), whose only crime has been loyalty to your flag. . . . In all the revolted states, upon the testimony of your ablest generals, there is no safety to the property or lives of loyal men. Is this what the loyal North has been fighting for? Thousands of loyal white men, driven like partridges over the mountains, homeless, houseless, penniless, to-day throng this capital. They fill the hotels, they crowd the avenues, they gather in these marble corridors, they look down from these galleries, and with supplicating eye ask protection from the flag that hangs above the Speaker's chair--a flag which thus far has unfurled its stripes, but concealed the promise of its stars."

--Mr. Le Blond of Ohio declared that "the provisions of this bill strike down every important provision in the Const.i.tution. You have already inaugurated enough here to destroy any government that was ever founded. . . . Now, Mr. Speaker, I do not predict any thing. I do not declare war, but as one American citizen I do prefer war to cowardly submission to a total destruction of the fundamental principles of our Government."

--He was followed by his colleague, Mr. Finck, who declared that "no member on this floor who understands the Const.i.tution of the United States, and who is friend of our Government, will pretend to urge that we have any Const.i.tutional power to pa.s.s this bill. . . . I declare it as my solemn conviction that no government can long continue to be free when one-third of its people and one-third of the States are controlled by military power."

--Mr. Bingham of Ohio, speaking for a more conservative type of republicanism than Mr. Stevens represented, begged gentlemen to "make haste slowly in the exercise of this highest possible power conferred by the Const.i.tution upon the Congress of the United States. For myself, sir, I am not going to yield to the proposition of the chairman of the committee, for a single moment, that one rood of the territory within the line of the ten states enumerated in this bill is conquered territory. The Government of the United States does not conquer any territory that is under the jurisdiction of the Const.i.tution."

--Mr. William Lawrence of Ohio said, "For myself I am ready to set aside by law all these illegal governments. They have rejected all fair terms of reconstruction. They have rejected the Const.i.tutional amendments we have tendered them. They are engines of oppression against all loyal men. They are not republican in form or purpose.

Let them not only be ignored as legal governments, but set aside because they are illegal." Mr. Lawrence suggested some amendments that would give to all the people the protection of the judiciary under National authority.

--Mr. Russell Thayer of Pennsylvania argued warmly for the bill, and said, "This measure will be of brief duration, and will be followed, as I am informed, by other measures, which will secure the permanent and peaceful restoration of these States to their proper and just position in the Union, upon their acceptance of such terms as are necessary for the future security of the country. When that is done, and when order is restored, and permanent protection is guaranteed to all the citizens of that section of the country, this measure will be abrogated and abandoned."

--Mr. Sh.e.l.labarger argued in favor of the bill, and said in conclusion, "This measure, taken alone, is one which I could not support unaccompanied by provisions for the rapid and immediate establishment of civil government based upon the suffrages of the loyal people of the South. I could not support a military measure like this if it was to be regarded as at all permanent in its character. It is because it is entirely the initiative, because it is only the employment of the Army of the United States as a mere police force, to preserve order until we can establish civil government based upon the loyal suffrages of the people, that I can support this measure at all. If it stood by itself, I could not, with my notions of the possibility and practicability of establishing civil governments in the South, based upon loyal suffrage, vote for this bill."

--Mr. Dawes made the pertinent inquiry whether, "after the General of the Army has, under this bill, a.s.signed a competent and trustworthy officer to the duties prescribed, there is any thing to hinder the President of the United States, under virtue of his power as Commander-in-Chief, from removing that officer and putting in his place another of an opposite character, thus making the very instrumentality we provide one of terrible evil?"

--Mr. John A. Griswold, who became the Republican candidate for governor of New York the ensuing year, earnestly opposed the bill. "By it," said he, "we are proceeding in the wrong direction. For more than two years we have been endeavoring to provide civil governments for that portion of our country, and yet by the provisions of this bill we turn our backs on our policy of the last two years, and by a single stride proceed to put all that portion of the country under exclusively military control. . . . For one, I prefer to stand by the overtures we have made to these people, as conditions of their again partic.i.p.ating in the government of the country. We have already placed before them conditions which the civilized world has indorsed as liberal, magnanimous, and just. I regret exceedingly that those very liberal terms have not been accepted by the South, but I prefer giving those people every opportunity to exhibit a spirit of obedience and loyalty."

--Mr. Henry J. Raymond opposed the bill in a vigorous speech. "Because we cannot devise any thing of a civil nature adequate to the emergency," said he, "it is urged that we must fly to the most violent measure the ingenuity of man could devise. Let me remind gentlemen that this has been the history of popular governments everywhere, the reason of their downfall, their decadence, and their death."

--Mr. Garfield indicated his support of the measure if it could be amended. "But," said he, "I call attention to the fact that from the collapse of the Rebellion to the present hour, Congress has undertaken to restore the States lately in rebellion by co-operation with their people, and that our efforts in that direction have proven a complete and disastrous failure." Alluding to the fact that the Fourteenth Amendment had been submitted as the basis of reconstruction, Mr.

Garfield continued, "The const.i.tutional amendment did not come up to the full height of the great occasion. It did not meet all I desired in the way of guarantees to liberty, but if the rebel States had adopted it as Tennessee did, I should have felt bound to let them in on the same terms prescribed for Tennessee. I have been in favor of waiting to give them full time to deliberate and to act. They have deliberated. They have acted. The last one of the sinful ten has at last, with contempt and scorn, flung back in our teeth the magnanimous offer of a generous nation. It is now our turn to act. They would not co-operate with us in building what they destroyed. We must remove the rubbish, and build from the bottom. . . . But there are some words which I want stricken out of this bill, and some limitations which I wish added, and I shall at least ask that they be considered."

--Mr. Ka.s.son objected that the bill was too sweeping in its provisions, that it affected the loyally disposed in the South with the same severity as it did the disloyally disposed. "Instead of erecting,"

said he, "this great military power over people of some portions of the South who are, in fact, at peace and observing law and order, our rule should be so flexible that we may apply martial law wherever peace and law and order do not prevail, without imposing it upon people whose subordination to the law renders military rule unnecessary."

--Mr. Boutwell said, "To-day there are eight millions and more of people, occupying six hundred and thirty thousand square miles of territory in this country, who are writhing under cruelties nameless in their character, and injustice such as has not been permitted to exist in any other country of modern times; and all this because in this capital there sits enthroned a man who, so far as the Executive Department of the Government is concerned, guides the destinies of the Republic in the interest of the rebels; and because, also, in those ten former States, rebellion itself, inspired by the Executive Department of this Government, wields all authority, and is the embodiment of law and power everywhere. . . . It is the vainest delusion, the wildest of hopes, the most dangerous of all aspirations, to contemplate the reconstruction of civil government until the rebel despotisms enthroned in power in these ten States shall be broken up."

--Mr. Banks asked for deliberation and delay in the discussion. He believed that "we might reach a solution in which the two Houses of Congress will agree, which the people of this country will sustain, and in which the President of the United States will give us his support. And if we should agree on a measure satisfactory to ourselves, in which we should be sustained by the people, and the President should resist it, then we should be justified in dropping the subject of reconstruction, and considering the condition of the country in a different sense." The allusion of General Banks, though thus veiled, was understood to imply the possible necessity of impeaching the President. It attracted attention because General Banks had been reckoned among the determined opponents of that extreme measure.

--Mr. Kelley of Pennsylvania declared that "the pa.s.sage of this bill or its equivalent is required by the manhood of this Congress, to save it from the hissing scorn and reproach of every Southern man who has been compelled to seek a home in the by-ways of the North, from every homeless widow and orphan of a Union soldier in the South, who should have been protected by the Government, and who, despite widowhood and orphanage, would have exalted in the power of our country had it not been for the treachery of Andrew Johnson."

--Mr. Allison of Iowa said, "Believing as I do, that this measure is essential to the preservation of the Union men of the South, believing that their lives, property and liberty cannot be secured except through military law, I am for this bill."

--Mr. Blaine of Maine expressed his unwillingness to support any measure that would place the South under military government, if it did not at the same time prescribe the methods by which the people of a State could by their own action re-establish civil government. He therefore asked Mr. Stevens to admit an amendment declared that "when any one of the late, so-called, Confederate States shall have given its a.s.sent to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Const.i.tution, and conformed its const.i.tution and laws thereto in all respects, and when it shall have provided, by its const.i.tution, that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed equally and impartially by all male citizens of the United States twenty-one years of age and upwards, without regard to race, color, or previous condition of servitude, except such as may be disfranchised for partic.i.p.ating in the late rebellion, and when such const.i.tution shall have been submitted to the voters of said State as then defined, for ratification or rejection, and when the const.i.tution, if ratified by the popular vote, shall have been submitted to Congress for examination and approval, said State shall, if its const.i.tution be approved by Congress, be declared ent.i.tled to representation in Congress, and senators and representatives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking the oath prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this bill shall be inoperative in said State."

--Mr. Blaine added, "It happened, Mr. Speaker, possibly by mere incident, that I was the first member of this House who spoke in Committee of the Whole on the President's message at the opening of this session. I then said that I believed the true interpretation of the election of 1866 was that, in addition to the proposed const.i.tutional amendment, impartial suffrage should be the basis of reconstruction. Why not declare it so? Why not, when you send out this military police through the lately rebellious States, send with it that impressive declaration?"

--Mr. Schenck of Ohio earnestly urged that before calling the previous question, Mr. Stevens would allow a vote upon the amendment offered by Mr. Blaine. Mr. Stevens declined, and a motion by Mr. Blaine to refer the bill to the Judiciary Committee with instructions to report back the amendment, was defeated by _ayes_ 69, _noes_ 94. The bill was then pa.s.sed by a vote of 109 to 55. The Republicans who voted against it were Baker of Illinois, Banks of Ma.s.sachusetts, Davis of New York, Defrees of Indiana, Dodge of New York, Kuykendall of Illinois, Loan of Missouri, Randall of Kentucky, Francis Thomas and John L. Thomas, jun., of Maryland.

The bill reached the Senate on the 13th of February. On the 14th Mr.

Williams of Oregon gave notice that he would offer an amendment, which was almost literally the same as that offered by Mr. Blaine in the House, but fearing that it might obstruct the pa.s.sage of the bill he withdrew it. Mr. Reverdy Johnson of Maryland renewed it, with the remark that if it should be adopted it would make the bill very much less objectionable than it then was, and upon the amendment debate proceeded.

Mr. Stewart of Nevada warmly sustained the amendment, regretting that the senator from Oregon had changed his mind with regard to it. Mr.

Stewart said that the history of military bills was that they were always temporary in the beginning. "But suppose the President of the United States approved it, or the next President, if you please, should like the bill, and should veto your measure repealing it, or suppose a bare majority in either House of Congress should like it, then you could not repeal it. It may be years after you desire to get rid of it before you can. I say, when you use the military for temporary purposes you should give the people of the South a chance to comply with all the requirements which you propose to make. If in the Blaine Amendment, as it is called, there are not sufficient guarantees, not enough conditions, then put in more and make it sufficient."

--Mr. Henderson of Missouri said, "If I understand the extent and scope of this bill, it will simply to give the sanction of Congress to military administration in the Southern States by the President. If there is any thing else in it, I desire to have it understood now, before we proceed any further. I am not exceedingly favorable to military government anywhere, and if I can get along without it in the Southern States I am anxious to do so. I am not pleased with it anywhere." Mr. Henderson expressed the opinion that the President of the United States could command General Grant in making the a.s.signments of officers to the respective districts.

--Mr. Willard Saulsbury of Delaware declared that "there is not a single provision in the bill that is const.i.tutional or will stand the test in any court of justice."

--Mr. Buckalew and Mr. Hendricks pointed out that the amendment, as Mr.

Johnson had submitted it, made suffrage universal, just as the amendment had been framed in the House.

--Mr. Johnson explained that he had taken it as prepared by the senator from Oregon.

--Mr. Howard of Michigan objected to the amendment because it would permit the increase of representatives in Congress, and of Presidential electors, from the Confederate States.

--After a prolonged debate on the amendment offered by the senator from Maryland, it was agreed to lay it aside by common consent, that Senator Sherman might offer a subst.i.tute for the entire bill, the fifth section of which substantially embodied the amendment offered by the senator from Maryland and which had been known as the Blaine Amendment in the House. Mr. Sherman's subst.i.tute gave to the President his rightful power to control the a.s.signment of officers of the army to the command of the military districts in the South. After debate the subst.i.tute of Mr. Sherman was pa.s.sed by a party vote,--twenty-nine to ten.

When the bill went to the House it was violently opposed by Mr. Stevens and Mr. Boutwell. Mr. Boutwell said, "My objection to the proposed subst.i.tute of the Senate is fundamental and conclusive, because the measure proposes to reconstruct the State governments at once through the agency of disloyal men."

--Mr. Stevens said, "When this House sent the bill to the Senate it was simply to protect the loyal men of the Southern States. The Senate has sent us back 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 the States, by making distant and future pledges which this Congress has no authority to make and no power to execute."

--Mr. Blaine argued against Mr. Stevens's proposition to send the measure to a Conference Committee, and he begged those "who look to any measure that shall guarantee a republican form of government to the rebel states, with universal suffrage for loyal men," to vote for this bill as it came from the Senate.

--Mr. Wilson of Iowa sustained the bill. "Although it does not attain," said he, "all that I desire to accomplish, it embraces much upon which I have insisted, and seems to be all that I can get at this session. It reaches far beyond anything which the most sanguine of us hoped for a year ago."

--Mr. Bingham declared that "the defeat of this bill to-day is really a refusal to enact any law whatever for the protection of any man in that vast portion of our country which was so recently swept over by our armies from the Potomac to the Rio Grande."

--General Schenck spoke with great force in favor of the bill, answering the somewhat reckless objections of Mr. Stevens in the most effective manner.

--General Garfield replied to those who objected to the Senate provision giving the command of officers in the South directly to the President. He said, "I want this Congress to give the command to the President of the United States, and then, perhaps, some impeachment hunters will have a chance to impeach him. They will if he does not obey." He rebuked the gentlemen "who, when any measure comes here that seems almost to grasp our purpose, resist and tell us that it is a surrender of liberty. I remember that this was done to us at the last session, when everybody knows that if the Republican party lived, it must live by the strength of the Const.i.tutional amendment, and when we agreed to pa.s.s it the _previous question_ was waived to allow certain gentlemen to tell us that it was too low and too unworthy, too mean and too unstatesmanlike."

--Mr. Russell Thayer of Pennsylvania supported the bill. He said, "I see in this provision, as I believe, what the deliberate judgment of the American people will regard as ample guarantees for the future loyalty and obedience of the South. Those conditions are: _first_, that the Southern States shall adopt a const.i.tution in conformity with the Const.i.tution of the United States; _second_, that it shall be ratified by a majority of the people of the States, without distinction of race, color, or condition; _third_, that such const.i.tution shall guarantee universal and impartial suffrage; _fourth_, that such const.i.tution shall be approved by Congress; _fifth_, that the States shall adopt the Fourteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution; and _sixth_, that the amendment shall become a part of the Const.i.tution of the United States. All this is required to be done before representation is accorded to the States lately in rebellion, and then no representative presenting himself for admission, can be received unless he can take the test oath."

--Mr. Eldridge of Wisconsin denounced the whole measure as most wicked and abominable. "It contains," said he, "all that is vicious, all that is mischievous in any of the propositions which have come either from the Committee on Reconstruction or from any gentleman upon the other side of the House."

--Mr. Elijah Hise of Kentucky declared that, "under such a system as this bill proposes, the writ of _habeas corpus_ cannot exist, because even if the civil tribunals are not entirely abolished, they will exist only at the will of the military tyrant in command."

--Mr. Davis of New York spoke of the danger of suddenly enfranchising the whole body of rebels. "The State of Kentucky," he said, "has enfranchised every rebel who has been in the service of the Confederate States. What to-day is the condition of affairs in that State? Why, sir, her political power is wielded by rebel hands. Rebel generals, wearing the insignia of the rebel service, walk the streets of her cities, admired and courted; while the Union officers with their wounds yet unhealed, are ostracized in political, commercial and social life."

--Mr. Niblack of Indiana, one of the leading Democrats of the House, thought the bill had been much improved by the action of the Senate.

"Though," said he, "it still retains many of the first features to which I objected when it was before the House for discussion, it is not now properly a military bill, nor is it properly a measure of civil administration. It is a most extraordinary attempt to blend the two principles together."

When a vote was reached, the House rejected the Senate amendment--_ayes_ 73, _noes_ 98. This result was effected by a coalition of all the Democrats with a minority of extreme Republicans. But thirteen days of the session remained, and it looked as if by a disagreement of Republicans all legislation on the subject of Reconstruction would be defeated. Under the pressure of this fear Republican differences were adjusted, and the Senate and the House found common ground to stand upon by adding two amendments to the bill as the Senate had framed it.

It was agreed, on motion of Mr. Wilson of Iowa, to add a _proviso_ to the fifth section, in these words: "that no person excluded from the privilege of holding office by said proposed amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States, shall be eligible as a member of a convention to frame a const.i.tution for any of said rebellious States, nor shall any such person vote for members of such convention." It was also agreed, on motion of Mr. Sh.e.l.labarger, that "until the people of said rebel States shall be admitted to representation in the Congress of the United States, any civil governments which may exist therein shall be deemed provisional only, and in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United States at any time to abolish, modify, control, or supersede. . . . All persons shall be ent.i.tled to vote, and none others, who are ent.i.tled to vote under the fifth section of this act; and no person shall be eligible to any office under such provisional government, who shall be disqualified from holding office under the provisions of the Third Article of such Const.i.tutional amendment." With these modifications both Senate and House pa.s.sed the bill by a party vote. During the discussion in the Senate Mr.

Doolittle moved that "nothing in this act shall be construed to disfranchise any persons in any of said States from voting or holding office who have received pardon and amnesty in accordance with the Const.i.tution and Laws." The proposition received but eight votes. The bill went to the President for approval on the 20th of February, leaving but a small margin of time for pa.s.sage over his veto if as antic.i.p.ated he should decline to sign it. The decisive character of the measure had evoked fierce opposition, and this in turn had stimulated Republican advocacy to a degree of great earnestness.

On the 2d of March the President sent to the House, in which branch the bill had originated, a long veto message of very comprehensive character. He had summed up all the arguments that had been made against the measure in both Houses, and he arrayed them with greater strength than when they were originally presented. His argument against placing the States under military government was cogently stated. "This bill," said he, "imposes martial law at once, and its operation will begin as soon as the general and his troops can be put in place. The dread alternative between its harsh rule and compliance with the terms of this measure is not suspended, nor are the people afforded any time for free deliberation. The bill says to them, 'Take martial law first, and then deliberate.' And when they have done all that this measure requires them to do, other conditions and contingencies, over which they have no control, yet remain to be fulfilled before they can be relieved from martial law. Another Congress must approve the const.i.tutions made in conformity with the law of this Congress, and must declare these States ent.i.tled to representation in both branches. The whole question thus remains open and unsettled, and must again occupy the attention of Congress; and in the mean time the agitation which now prevails will continue to disturb all portions of the people."

The President's veto reached the House on the afternoon of Sat.u.r.day.

On Monday, March 4th, at noon, Congress would expire by Const.i.tutional limitation. The President had communicated his veto on the last day permitted by the Const.i.tution, and it was generally believed that his motive for the postponement was to give the minority in one branch or the other the power to defeat the bill either by dilatory motions or by "talking against time." Mr. Le Blond and Mr. Finck or Ohio, and Mr.

Boyer of Pennsylvania, frankly indicated their intention to employ all means within their power to compa.s.s this end. A system of parliamentary delay was thus foreshadowed, but was prevented by Mr.

Blaine moving that the rules be suspended and a vote immediately taken on the question required by the Const.i.tution; namely, "_Will the House, on reconsideration, agree to the pa.s.sage of the bill, the President's objection to the contrary notwithstanding?_" The Speaker decided that the motion in this form cut off all dilatory proceedings. Mr. Finck appealed from the decision of the Chair, but only four members sustained him. The rules were suspended, and the House, by a vote of one hundred and thirty-five _ayes_ to forty-eight _noes_, pa.s.sed the bill over the veto of the President. The Senate concurred in the action of the House by _ayes_ thirty-eight, _noes_ ten; and the famous Reconstruction law, from which flowed consequences of great magnitude, was thus finally enacted against every effort of the Executive Department of the Government.(1)