History of the Antislavery Measures of the Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth United States Congresses, 1861-65, by Henry Wilson, 1865.

CHAPTER XVII.

A BUREAU OF FREEDMEN.

MEMORIAL OF THE MASSACHUSETTS EMANCIPATION LEAGUE. — MR. ELIOT'S BILL, SELECT COMMITTEE ON EMANCIPATION. FREEDMEN'S BILL REPORTED BY MR. ELIOT. — REMARKS OF MR. ELIOT. MR. COX, MR. COLE. — MR. BROOKS, — MR. KELLEY, — MR. DAWSON, — MR. PRICE. — MR. KNAPP. — MR. PENDLETON, — PASSAGE OF MR. ELIOT'S BILL, — MR. SUMNER'S BILL. — MR. ELIOT'S BILL REPORTED BY MR. SUMNER, WITH AN AMENDMENT. — MR. SUMNER'S SPEECH. — MR. SUMNER'S AMENDMENT AMENDED AND ADOPTED IN THE SENATE. — THE HOUSE POSTPONE THE BILL TO THE NEXT SESSION.

IN the Senate, on the 12th of January, 1863, Mr. Wilson (Rep.) presented the memorial of the Emancipation League of Massachusetts, setting forth the needs of the new-made freedmen and the duty of the Government, and praying for the immediate establishment of a Bureau of Emancipation ; which was ordered to be printed, and referred to the Committee on Military Affairs. In the House, on the 19th, Mr. Eliot (Rep.) of Massachusetts introduced a bill to establish a Bureau of Emancipation ; which was referred to the Select Committee on Emancipation, of which Mr. White (Rep.) of Indiana was Chairman.

On the 14th of December, 1863, Mr. Eliot introduced a bill to establish a Bureau of Emancipation ; which was referred to a select committee of nine, consisting of Mr. Eliot (Rep.) of Massachusetts, Mr. Kelley (Rep.) of Pennsylvania, Mr. Knapp (Dem.) of Illinois, Page 329 Mr. Orth (Rep.) of Indiana, Mr. Boyd (Rep.) of Missouri, Mr. Kalbfleisch (Dem.) of New York, Mr. Cobb ( Rep. ) of Wisconsin, Mr. Anderson (Union) of Kentucky, and Mr. Middleton (Dem.) of New Jersey. On the 23d, Mr. Eliot reported from the Select Committee a bill to establish a Bureau of Emancipation ; which was ordered to be printed, and recommitted to the committee. On the 13th of January, 1864, Mr. Eliot reported back the bill with an amendment. Mr. Kalbfleisch made a minority report. On the 10th of February, the bill came up for consideration. Mr. Eliot offered a substitute for the original bill. Mr. Holman (Dem.) of Indiana moved to lay the bill on the table, and Mr. Cox (Dem.) of Ohio moved to refer it to the Committee of the Whole. The Speaker ruled that Mr. Eliot held the floor. Mr. Eliot addressed the House in favor of his bill in an earnest and able speech. He said the freedmen were " the children of the Government. Quick to learn ; appreciating kindnesses, and returning them with veneration and affection ; earnest to acquire property, because that, too, is proof of man-hood, — they ask but opportunity and guidance and education for a season, and then they will repay you, some thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred fold. ... So shall this, your act, give to the freedmen of the South, and to all the freemen whom you represent, ' beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.' "

On the 17th, the House proceeded to the consideration of Mr. Eliot's bill, and Mr. Cox spoke against its enactment. He declared that "not merely has the President's proclamation been made a living lie, but Page 330 the thousands of corpses dally hurried out of the contraband hovels and tents along the Mississippi prove it to have been a deadly lie. Neither the judgment of man nor the favor of God can be invoked without mockery upon a fanatical project so fraught with misery to the weak, and wholesale slaughter to its deluded victims." Mr. Cole (Rep.) of California followed on the 18th In an earnest speech in favor of the bill and the policy of freedom. Mr. Kalbfleisch, on the 19th, spoke in opposition to the measure. Mr. Brooks (Dem.) of New York said, " The bill is vast in its territory, vast in its objects, vast in its purposes, vast in Its intentions." He declared, " Whenever a gentleman from Massachusetts in these our latter days introduces any bill or pro pounds any proposition for the consideration of the House, I always listen to him with attentive ears, with apprehension, with something of awe ; nay, with that deep interest that the Roman of old must have listened to the unrolling of the leaves of the Sibyl, or the Greek to the utterings of the oracle in Delphos. Massachusetts is now the leading power in this country. Whatever she decrees is in all probability to be law. She exercises the same control over this vast country, which stretches from the Passamaquoddy to the Rio Grande, and from the Rio Grande to the Pacific, that was exercised by Imperial Rome, on the little Tiber, from the Pillars of Hercules to the Euphrates and Tigris. Boston, her capital, is well called the hub of our universe, with her spokes now inserted in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, the great West, and the great North-west, the rim of whose wheel now runs with frightful, crushing velocity from that Passamaquoddy to that Rio Grande. Page 331 ... I know the spirit of Massachusetts. I know her inexorable, unappeasable, demoniac energy." He thought "this freedmen's bill not worthy of the practical mind of Massachusetts. It must have come from some of the freedmen's commissioners, — perhaps from Robert Dale Owen ; for the bill is Socialistic, Fourieristic, Owenistic, erotic." On the 23d, Mr. Kelley, a member of the Select Committee that reported the bill, spoke eloquently in favor of its passage. In reply to Mr. Brooks, he said, " I am no son of Massachusetts or New England, as the gentleman is, but I remember, that in my wayward youth, being free from the indenture that had bound me to a long apprenticeship, but not having attained manhood, I- wandered from my native Pennsylvania, counter to the current tide of emigration, in pursuit of employment, and found a home in Massachusetts ; and I may be pardoned If I pause for a moment to feebly testify ray gratitude to her, in whom I found a gentle and generous foster-mother. I thank God for the Puritan spirit of Massachusetts. A boy, poor, friendless, and in pursuit of wages for manual toil, I found open to me, in the libraries of Boston, the science, history, and literature of the world. At a cost that even the laboring man did not feel, I found, night after night, and week after week, in her lyceums and lecture-rooms, the means of intercourse with her Bancrofts, her Brownsons, her Everetts, her Channings, her Prescotts, her Emersons, and scores of others as learned and as able sons as these, though perhaps less distinguished. I thus learned what it was to be an American citizen, and to what a height American civilization will be carried ; and I found four years of life spent at well- Page 332 paid toil worth to me what the same number of years in a college might have been. . . . You need not fear that this black race will fade away. The glowing South, the land of the tropics, genial to them, invites its own development, and will insure that of this race."

The House resumed the consideration of the bill on .the 24th; and Mr. Dawson (Dem.) of Pennsylvania made an elaborate and able speech in opposition to the policy of the Administration. Mr. Davis of Maryland followed on the 25th in a speech of eloquence and power. Mr. Knapp (Dem.) of Illinois addressed the House on the lst of March in opposition to the passage of the bill. Mr. Price (Rep.) of Iowa spoke for the bill, and sharply replied to M.; Cox. Mr. Eliot moved the previous question, which was sustained by the House Mr. Eliot yielded a portion of his hour to close the debate to Mr. Pendleton (Dem.) of Ohio, who spoke briefly but forcibly against the right to enact the bill. He thought the freedmen, numbering more than half a million, " long for the repose and quiet of their old homes, and the care of their masters ; that freedom has not been to them the promised boon ; that even thus soon it has proven Itself to be a life of torture, ending only in certain and speedy death." Mr. Wadsworth, by the courtesy of Mr. Eliot, spoke briefly against the passage of the bill. Mr. Eliot, being anxious to take the vote, declined to close the debate. Mr. Brooks's motion to recommit the bill was lost, and the substitute moved by Mr. Eliot was agreed to. Mr. Mallory (Dem.) of Kentucky moved to lay the bill on the table, — yeas 62, nays 68. Mr. Mallory demanded the yeas and nays on the passage of the bill ; and they were ordered. The Page 333 question was taken, — yeas 69, nays 67. So the bill passed the House.

In the Senate, on the 2d of March, Mr. Eliot’s bill was referred to the Select Committee on Slavery, of which Mr. Sumner was chairman. On the 12th of April, Mr. Sumner reported from the Select Committee on Slavery a bill to establish a Bureau of Freedmen ; which was read, and ordered to a second reading. On the 25th of May, Mr. Sumner reported back from the Select Committee on Slavery Mr. Eliot’s bill, with an amendment to strike out the original bill, and insert his bill in lieu of it. On the 8th of June, the Senate proceeded to the consideration of the House bill, the pending question being on the substitute reported by Mr. Sumner as an amendment. Mr. Sumner explained the provisions of his substitute for the House bill, and earnestly and eloquently pressed the importance of prompt action. " The opportunity," he declared, " must not be lost, of helping so many persons who are now helpless, and of aiding the cause of reconciliation, without which peace cannot be assured." Mr. Richardson (Dem.) of Illinois opposed the bill, and bitterly assailed the Administration.

On the 14th, Mr. Sumner moved to proceed to the consideration of the House bill to establish a Bureau of Freedmen's Affairs. Mr. M'Dougall demanded the yeas and nays, — yeas 23, nays 11. Several Important amendments were made ; not, however, changing the general features of the measure. Mr. Carlile (Dem.) of Virginia moved to postpone the further consideration of the bill to the first Monday of December next, — yeas 13, nays 23. Mr. Willey (Union) of West Virginia, Page 334 earnestly opposed and severely criticised the bill, and Mr. Sumner sharply replied to Mr. Willey's remarks. On the 27th, the Senate resumed the consideration of the bill ; and several amendments were offered by the friends and opponents of the measure. Mr. Trumbull moved to amend the bill by adopting a new section, repealing the last clause of a joint resolution explanatory of the Confiscation Act. On the 28th, the vote was taken on Mr. Trumbull’s amendment ; and it was adopt ed, — yeas 23, nays 15. Mr. Doolittle moved that all assistant commissioners and superintendents and other officers be so far considered in the military service as to be liable to trial by court martial ; and the amendment was agreed to. Mr. Willey moved to authorize the commissioners to open a correspondence with the governor and municipal authorities, to aid in securing homes for the freedmen ; and it was adopted, — yeas 19, nays 15. Mr. Wilson moved to strike put of the substitute the word "treasury," and insert "war." — "I have moved this amendment, because, in my judgment, it is better, in every aspect in which the case can be viewed, that this bureau should be in the War Department, because the War Department controls the army. The rebel States are divided into military department ; and all the law we administer there is military law, and all the government we exercise over them is military government. Why we should take these people, who now flock to the army, and have gathered around It for protection and support, from under the control of the War Department, and put them under the control of speculating treasury agents, is a thing I cannot comprehend." Mr. Sumner hoped the amendment Page 335 would not be adopted. He declared, " K it should be adopted, I shall consider the bill worse than nothing." "I do not wish," replied Mr. Wilson, "to take the responsibility of giving a turn to this bill contrary to the wishes of my colleague, who has had the direction of it ; and, having stated my opinion, I withdraw the amendment." Mr. Sumner’s substitute for the House bill was then agreed to, and the bill reported to the Senate as amended. Mr. Johnson moved to strike out the word " treasury," and insert the word " war," — yeas 15, nays 20. Mr. Davis spoke in opposition to the bill, and in denunciation of the policy of the Administration ; and Mr. Wilkinson sharply replied to Mr. Davis. Mr. Hendricks opposed the passage of the bill, and Mr. Chandler earnestly advocated the policy of using the negro to put down the Rebellion. "A secession traitor," he declared, " is beneath a loyal negro. I would let a loyal negro vote ; I would let him testify ; I would let him fight ; I would let him do any other good thing ; and I would exclude a secession traitor. I say this deliberately, that in Kentucky, in Tennessee, in Alabama, in Louisiana, in South Carolina, in every single rebel State, I consider a loyal negro better than a secession traitor, and I will treat him better. Make the most of it." — "The policy," said Mr. M'Dougall, " proposed by this bill, is an outrage upon Christianity and humanity ; and as such, with a severe sense of duty, I denounce it." Mr. Buckalew called for the yeas and nays on the passage of the bill ; and they were ordered, — yeas 21, nays 9. So the bill "to establish a Bureau of Freedmen " passed the Senate on the 28th of June.

In the House, on the 2d of July, Mr. Eliot, from the Page 336 Select Committee on Emancipation, reported back his bill and the amendment of the Senate, and moved that the amendment of the Senate be non-concurred in. Mr. Washburne (Rep.) of Illinois expressed the hope that Mr. Eliot would withdraw his report, find let the call of the committees go on. Mr. Eliot could not consent to that. Mr. Griswold (Dem.) of New York wished to know if it would be in order to move to lay the bill on the table. Mr. Washburne suggested that he could move the postponement to the next session. Mr. Griswold moved to postpone the further consideration of the bill to the 20th of December next. The motion was agreed to ; and the bill will come up for consideration at the next session.

Source: Wilson, Henry. History of the Antislavery Measures of the Thirty-Seventh and Thirty-Eighth United States Congresses, 1861-1865, Boston: Walker, Fuller, & Co., 1865.