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

CHAPTER XVIII.

RECONSTRUCTION OF REBEL STATES.

MR. HARLAN'S BILL. — MR. SUMNER'S RESOLUTIONS, — MR. ASHLEY'S BILL. — MR. HARRIS'S BILL, MR. WINTER DAVIS'S RESOLUTION. — SELECT COMMITTEE ON RECONSTRUCTION. — MR. DAVIS'S BILL. REMARKS OF MR. DAVIS, MR. BEAMAN, MR. ALLEN, MR. SMITHERS, MR. NORTON, MR. BROOMALL, MR. SCOFIELD, MR. DAWSON, MR. WILLIAMS, MR. BALDWIN OF MASSACHUSETTS, MR. DONNELLY, MR. PERHAM, MR. GOOCH, MR. FERNANDO WOOD, MR. KELLEY, MR. BOUTWELL, MR. PENDLETON, MR. DAVIS'S SUBSTITUTE, — PASSAGE OF MR. DAVIS'S BILL. — HOUSE BILL REPOETED BY MR. WADE, — MR. BROWN'S AMENDMENT. — MR. SUMNER'S AMENDMENT, — PASSAGE OF MR. BROWN'S SUBSTITUTE, — HOUSE NON-CONCUR, — SENATE RECEDE, — PASSAGE OF THE BILL. — THE PRESIDENT REFUSES TO APPROVE IT.

IN the Senate, on the 26th of December, 1861, Mr. Harlan (Rep.) of Iowa introduced a bill to establish a provisional government in each of the districts of country embraced within the limits of the Confederate States of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee ; which was referred to the Committee on Territories. Mr. Sumner, on the llth of February, 1862, introduced a series of resolutions declaratory of the relations between the United States and the territory once occupied by certain States, and now usurped by pretended governments - without constitutional or legal right. These resolutions declare that slavery, being a local institution, ceased to exist when the States no longer exist ; that it Is the duty of Congress to see that everywhere, in this extensive Page 338 territory, slavery shall cease to exist practically, as it has already ceased to exist constitutionally or legally ; and that any recognition of slavery, or surrender of pretended slaves, besides being a recognition of the pretended governments, giving them aid and comfort," is a denial of the rights of persons, who, by the extinction of the States, have become free, so that, under the Constitution, they cannot again be enslaved. No action was taken on these resolutions.

In the House, Mr. Ashley (Rep.) of Ohio, on the 12th of March, reported, from the Committee on Territories, a bill for a provisional government over the territory in rebellion. Mr. Pendleton (Dem.) of Ohio declared that " this bill ought to be entitled a bill to dissolve the Union, and abolish the Constitution ; " and moved that it be laid upon the table. Mr. Bingham (Rep.) of Ohio demanded the yeas and nays, — yeas 65,, nays 56. So the bill was held upon the table. Mr. Harris (Rep.) of New York, on the 14th of February, introduced into the Senate a bill to establish provisional governments in certain cases ; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. Harris repeatedly pressed the consideration of the measure ; but ho action was taken upon it. On the 3d of March, 1863, the Senate, on motion of Mr. Harris, proceeded to the consideration of the bill ; and Mr. Harris proposed to amend it by striking out six sections, and inserting three new actions. The third section of the amendment provided that no law, whereby any person has heretofore been held to service or labor in any such State, shall be recognized or enforced by any court or officer constituted or appointed under the provisions of Page 339 this act ; and all laws providing for the trial and punishment of white persons in any such State shall be decreed, and are hereby declared to be, applicable to the trial and punishment of all persons whomsoever within the jurisdiction of such court or officer. Mr. Carlile (Dem.) of Virginia moved to strike out those words. Mr. Davis (Dem.) of Kentucky moved to lay the bill on the table, — yeas 15 ; nays 21. The Senate, by a vote of 22 to 13, on motion of Mr. Wilkinson (Rep.) of Minnesota, postponed the consideration of the bill, to take up the bill for the organization of Idaho.

In the House of Representatives, on the 15th of December, 1863, Mr. Stevens (Rep.) of Pennsylvania proposed that so much of the President's message as relates to the condition and treatment of the rebellious States be referred . to a Select Committee of nine.. Mr. Davis (Rep.) of Maryland moved to amend the resolution, so as to appoint a committee of nine, to whom so much of the President's message as relates to the duty of the United States to guarantee a republican form of government to the States shall be referred, which shall report the bills necessary and proper to carry into execution that guaranty. After a brief de bate, the amendment of Mr. Davis was carried, — yeas 91, nays 80; and the Speaker appointed as the select committee Mr. Davis (Rep.) of Maryland, Mr. Gooch (Rep.) of Massachusetts, Mr. J. C. Allen (Dem.) of Illinois, Mr. Ashley (Rep.) of Ohio, Mr. Fenton (Rep.) of New York, Mr. Holman (Dem.) of Indiana, Mr. Smithers (Rep.) of Delaware, Mr. Blow (Rep.) of Missouri, and Mr. English (Dem.) of Connecticut. Page 340

On the 15th of February, Mr. Davis reported a bill to guarantee to certain States whose have been usurped a republican form of government ; which was read twice, ordered to be printed, and recommitted to the committee.

On the 22d of March, on motion of Mr. Davis, the House proceeded to the consideration of the bill guaran teeing to certain States a republican form of goverment. The bill, among other things, provided that the State constitutional conventions to be held shall incorporate into the constitutions of the States that involuntary servitude is for ever prohibited, and the freedom of all persons is guaranteed. The bill also provided that all persons held to involuntary servitude or labor in the rebel States are emancipated and discharged, and they and their posterity shall be for ever free ; and, if they or their posterity shall be restrained of liberty under pretence of any claim to such service or labor, the courts of the United States shall, on habeas corpus discharge them. The bill also provided, that if any person declared free by this act, or any law of the United States, or any proclamation of the President, be restrained of liberty, with intent to be held in or reduced to involuntary servitude or labor, the person convicted before a court of competent jurisdiction of such act shall be punished by fine of not less than fifteen hundred dollars, and be imprisoned not less than five nor more than twenty years. Mr. Davis addressed the House eloquently in support of his bill. Mr. Beaman (Rep.) of Michigan earnestly advocated the measure. He closed his speech by the emphatic declaration, " By no consent of mine shall a single one of the wayward Page 341 States ever be permitted to participate in shaping the destinies of this nation, until she has by her organic law for ever prohibited involuntary servitude, except ae a punishment for crime, within all her borders ; nor, while I have life and strength, will I cease to urge by all constitutional means the freedom of every inhabitant of the United States, without regard to color or race."

On the 19th of April, the House resumed the discussion of the bill ; and Mr. J. C. Allen, a member of the Select Committee, addressed the House in op position to its passage. "Some one," he said, "had suggested, that, when slavery was buried, upon its tombstone should be written, 'Slavery, — died of the Rebellion.' I warn gentlemen to beware, lest beside the grave of Slavery be found another grave and another tombstone, whereon History -will write, ' Civil Liberty, — died of Revolution.' " Mr. Smithers of Delaware made an earnest and able speech in advocacy of the measure. " I do not," he said, " trust wholly to presidential proclamations. I prefer to rest the security of the Re public upon the safer and more irrefragable basis of Congressional enactments. I would not forego any possible precaution against the recurrence of fraternal strife. Homogeneity of institutions is our only safe guard ; universal freedom, the only possible solution." Mr. Norton (Rep.) of Illinois spoke in favor of the measure, and sharply criticised the speeches made in favor of the policy of peace. He was followed by Mr. Broomall (Rep.) of Pennsylvania in earnest advocacy of the bill. " Let us at last," he exclaimed, " do justice to our mother-tongue, — that in which the great English and the greater American charter were written ; that Page 342 which, from its infancy, proclaimed the rights of men, and denounced the Crimea of tyrants. Let us learn, that, sublime as it is for the utterance of grand truths, it is no language to lie in." Mr. Scofield (Rep.) of Pennsylvania spoke eloquently in favor of the policy of emancipation. He thought we had exhausted "all concessions within the range of possibility, which, if made, would conciliate the slave power. Even James Buchanan, so gifted in abasement, could find nothing more in the shape of theory to give them, and in its stead tendered the low villany of Lecompton." Mr. Dawson (Dem.) of Pennsylvania opposed the enactment of the bill. Mr. Williams (Rep.) of Pennsylvania followed in a speech of rare beauty and masterly power. He paid a glowing tribute to New England and to Massachusetts. "Leave out," he exclaimed, " Massachusetts in the cold ! What matters is that no tropical sun has fevered her Northern blood into the delirium of treason? I know no trait of tenderness more touching and more human than that with which she received back to her arms the bodies of her lifeless children. ' Handle them tenderly' was the message of her loyal governor. Massachusetts desired to look once more upon the faces of her martyred sons, ' marred ag they were by traitors.' She lifted gently the sable pall that covered them. She gave them a soldier's burial and a soldier's farewell; and then, like David of old, when he was informed that the child of his affections had ceased to live, she rose to her feet, dashed the tear drop from her eye, and in twenty days her iron-clad battalions were crowning the heights,, and her guns frowning destruction over the streets, of the rebel city. Page 343 Shut out Massachusetts in the cold ! Yes : you may blot her out from the map of the continent : you may bring back the glacial epoch, when the arctic ice-drift that has deposited so many monuments on her soil swept over her buried surface, — when the polar bear, perhaps, paced the driving floes, and the walrus frolicked among the tumbling icebergs : but you cannot sink her deep enough to drown the memory of Lexington and Concord, or bury the summit of the tall column that lifts its head over the first of our battle fields. 'With her,' in the language of her great son, the past at least la secure.' The Muse of History has flung her story upon the world’s canvas in tints that will not fade, and cannot die." Mr. Baldwin (Dem.) of Michigan opposed the bill and the emancipation measures of the Administration. " Fanatical radical ism," he declared," has gained the ascendency ; and the war for the last eighteen months has been prosecuted, not for the restoration of the Union, but for the destruction of the South." Mr. Thayer (Rep.) of Pennsylvania advocated the policy of taking security for the future peace of the nation. Mr. Yeaman (Union) of Kentucky did not see our power to legislate away the laws and institutions of States. " Viewing the bill from the stand-point of those who desire universal abolition, it would seem to be idle and premature legislation, because, without military success, the law is a dead letter ; and with military, success , under the present programme, abolition is accomplished without the law.'' Mr. Longyear (Rep.) of Michigan spoke in favor of the passage of the bill.

On the 2d of May, Mr. Donnelly (Rep.) of Minnesota Page 344 addressed the House in its favor. "I cannot," he said, " perceive the advantage, to any man, of the degradation of any other man ; and I feel assured of the greatness and perpetuity of my country, only in as far as it identifies itself with the uninterrupted progress and the universal liberty of mankind." Mr. Dennison (Dem.) of Pennsylvania opposed the measure and the general policy of the Administration. Mr. Stevens spoke in advocacy of the bill, and of a radical antislavery policy. Mr. Strouse (Dem.) of Pennsylvania severely denounced the policy of the Administration ; and Mr. Cravens (Dem.) of Indiana followed in a general assault upon the principles and measures of the Administration.

On the 3d, Mr. Perham (Rep.) of Maine spoke earnestly for the measure, and Mr. Keenan (Dem.) of New York strenuously opposed it. Mr. Gooch (Rep.) of Massachusetts supported, and Mr. Perry (Dem.) of New Jersey opposed, the passage of the bill. Mr. Fernando Wood, the leader of the unconditional peace Democrats, made an elaborate speech against it. "We of this generation," he said, "may not be able to estimate the full measure of the misery that will follow the realization of the fantastic theory, which, promising to remove the yoke from every shoulder, will curse the earth with sterility, and man with vice and poverty." Mr. Kelley (Rep.) of Pennsylvania would pass this bill " as a means of organizing conquest and peace." The debate was resumed by Mr. Cox of Ohio on the 4th. "I ask for this people justice," said Mr. Boutwell (Rep.) of Massachusetts, " in the presence of these great events, in this exigency, when the life of the nation is in peril, and when every reflecting person must see that the Page 345 cause of that peril is in the injustice we have done to the negro race. I ask that we shall now do justice to that race. They are four millions. They will remain on this continent. They cannot be expatriated. They await the order of Providence. Their home is here. It is our duty to elevate them, to provide for their civilization, for their enlightenment, that they may enjoy the fruits of their labor and their capacity." Mr. Pendleton (Dem.) of Ohio spoke strongly against the passage of the bill. He declared, " It creates unity ; it destroys liberty ; it maintains integrity of territory, but destroys the rights of the citizen." Mr. Davis moved a substitute for the bill. Mr. Ancona (Dem.) of Pennsylvania moved that the bill and substitute be laid on the table. The motion was lost. The question was taken on Mr. Davis's substitute ; and it was adopt ed. Mr. Cox demanded the yeas and nays on the pas sage of the bill; and they were ordered, — yeas 73, nays 59. So Mr. Davis's bill passed the House of Representatives .

In the Senate, the bill was referred to the Committee on Territories, of which Mr. Wade was chairman. On the 27th of May, Mr. Wade reported back the bill with amendments. On the 1st of July, Mr. Wade moved to take up the bill for consideration. Mr. Lane of Kansas opposed the motion, and Mr. Pomeroy advocated it. Mr. Powell demanded the yeas and nays; and they were ordered, — yeas 20, nays 11. Mr. Wade opposed all amendments. Mr. Lane of Kansas demanded the yeas and nays on the amendment to strike out the word "white " before the word " male ; " and the question, being taken by yeas and nays, resulted Page 346 — yeas 5, nays 24. Mr. Brown (Rep.) of Missouri moved to strike out all after the enacting clause, and insert, that when the inhabitants of any State have been declared in a state ' of insurrection by the proclamation of the President, by force and virtue of the act of the 13th of July, 1861, they shall be incapable of casting any vote for President, or of electing senators and Representatives in Congress. Mr. Wade expressed the hope, that the amendment would not be adopted. Mr. Carlile opposed the original bill. The question being on Mr. Brown's amendment, Mr. Conness (Union) from California demanded the yeas and nays; and they were ordered, — yeas 17, nays 16 : so Mr. Brown's amendment was agreed to. Mr. Sumner moved to amend the bill by adding " That the proclamation of emancipation issued by the President of the United States on the first day of January, 1863, so far as the same declares that the slaves in certain designated States, and portion of States, thenceforward should be free, is hereby adopted, and enacted as a statute of the United States, and as a rule. and article for the government of the military and naval forces thereof." Mr. Hale opposed the amendment to Mr. Brown's substitute, as he did not wish it embarrassed by, any other question. Mr. Sumner thought it impossible for any person who recognizes the proclamation of emancipation to vote against the amendment. "I wish," he said, " to make the present sure, and to fix it forever more and immortal in an act of Congress." Mr. Saulsbury (Dem.) of Delaware declared that "an Administration soon, thank God, will be in power, which will wipe out all this species of legislation, and will do Page 347 it without blood-shedding too." Mr. 'Brown was in favor of Mr. Sumner's amendment as an independent proposition, but not on the pending bill. The question was taken on Mr. Sumner's amendment, — yeas 11, nays 21. Mr. Wilson demanded the yeas and nays on Mr. Brown's amendment ; and they, were ordered, — yeas 20, nays 13. The yeas and nays were then taken on the passage of the bill as amended, — yeas 26, nays 3. So the bill passed the Senate.

The House of Representatives, on motion of Mr. Davis, non-concurred in the Senate amendment, and asked a Committee of Conference ; and Mr. Davis of Maryland, Mr. Ashley of Ohio, and Mr. Dawson of Pennsylvania, were appointed conferees. The Senate, on motion of Mr. Wade, by a vote of 18 yeas to 14 nays, receded from Mr. Brown's amendment. Mr. Davis's bill passed the Senate on the 2d of July, but did not receive the approval of the President of the United States.

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.