Part 16

MR. SUMNER. And for a very good reason,--that I could not read the signature without exposing the writer to violence, if not to death.

MR. DAVIS [of Kentucky]. Mr. President, I rise to a question of order. I ask if the reading of the letter by the Senator from Massachusetts is in order.

THE PRESIDENT _pro tempore_. In the opinion of the Chair, a Senator, in making a speech to the Senate, has a right to read from a letter in his possession, if he deems proper.

MR. DAVIS. I ask whether it is in order for the Senator from Massachusetts to make a speech at this time.

THE PRESIDENT _pro tempore_. The Chair sees nothing disorderly in it.

Mr. Sumner then read the letter, and remarked:--

I should not read this letter, if I were not entirely satisfied of the character and intelligence of the writer. It is in the nature of testimony which the Senate cannot disregard. It points the way to duty. We must, Sir, follow the suggestions of this patriot Unionist, and erase the governments under which these outrages are perpetrated. The writer calls them “sham governments.” They are governments having no element of vitality. They are disloyal in origin, and they share the character of the Rebellion itself. We must go forth to meet them, and the spirit in which they have been organized, precisely as in years past we went forth to meet the Rebellion. The Rebellion, Sir, has assumed another form. Our conflict is no longer on the field of battle, but here in this Chamber, and in the Chamber at the other end of the Capitol. Our strife is civic, but it should be none the less strenuous.

FEMALE SUFFRAGE, AND AN EDUCATIONAL TEST OF MALE SUFFRAGE.

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, ON AMENDMENTS TO THE BILL CONFERRING SUFFRAGE WITHOUT DISTINCTION OF COLOR IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, DECEMBER 13, 1866.

December 10th, the Suffrage Bill for the District of Columbia, considered in the former session of Congress,[74] was again taken up for consideration, when Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, moved to amend it by striking out the word “male,” so that there should be no limitation of sex. December 12th, after debate, this motion was rejected,--Yeas 9, Nays 37. The Senators voting in the affirmative were Mr. Anthony, of Rhode Island, Mr. Gratz Brown, of Missouri, Mr. Buckalew, of Pennsylvania, Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, Mr. Foster, of Connecticut, Mr. Nesmith, of Oregon, Mr. Patterson, of Tennessee, Mr. Riddle, of Delaware, and Mr. Wade, of Ohio.

The following amendment was then moved by Mr. Dixon, of Connecticut:--

“_Provided_, That no person who has not heretofore voted in this District shall be permitted to vote, unless he shall be able, at the time of offering to vote, to read, and also to write his own name.”

December 13th, at this stage of the debate, Mr. Sumner said:--

MR. PRESIDENT,--I have already voted against the motion to strike out the word “male,” and I shall vote against the pending proposition to fix an educational test. In each case I am governed by the same consideration.

In voting against striking out the word “male,” I did not intend to express any opinion on the question, which has at last found its way into the Senate Chamber, whether women shall be invested with the elective franchise. That question I leave untouched, contenting myself with the remark, that it is obviously the great question of the future,--at least one of the great questions,--which will be easily settled, whenever the women in any considerable proportion insist that it shall be settled. And so, in voting against an educational test, I do not mean to say that under other circumstances such test may not be proper. But I am against it now.

The present bill is for the benefit of the colored race in the District of Columbia. It completes Emancipation by Enfranchisement. It entitles all to vote without distinction of color. The courts and the rail-cars of the District, even the galleries of Congress, have been opened. The ballot-box must be opened also. Such is my sense not only of the importance, but of the necessity of this measure, so essential does it appear to me for the establishment of peace, security, and reconciliation, which I so earnestly covet, that I am unwilling to see it clogged, burdened, or embarrassed by anything else. I wish to vote on it alone. Therefore, whatever the merits of other questions, I have no difficulty in putting them aside until this is settled.

The bill for Impartial Suffrage in the District of Columbia concerns directly some twenty thousand colored persons, whom it will lift to the adamantine platform of Equal Rights. If regarded simply in its influence on the District, it would be difficult to exaggerate its value; but when regarded as an example to the whole country, under the sanction of Congress, its value is infinite. In the latter character it becomes a pillar of fire to illumine the footsteps of millions. What we do here will be done in the disorganized States. Therefore we must be careful that what we do here is best for the disorganized States.

If the bill could be confined in influence to the District, I should have little objection to an educational test as an experiment. But it cannot be limited to any narrow sphere. Practically, it takes the whole country into its horizon. We must, therefore, act for the whole country. This is the exigency of the present moment.

Now to my mind nothing is clearer than the present necessity of suffrage for all colored persons in the disorganized States. It will not be enough, if you give it to those who read and write; you will not in this way acquire the voting force needed there for the protection of Unionists, whether white or black. You will not secure the new allies essential to the national cause. As you once needed the muskets of blacks, so now you need their votes,--and to such extent that you can act with little reference to theory. You are bound by the necessity of the case. Therefore, when asked to open suffrage to women, or when asked to establish an educational standard for our colored fellow-citizens, I cannot, on the present bill, simply because the controlling necessity under which we act will not allow it. By a singular Providence, we are constrained to this measure of Enfranchisement for the sake of peace, security, and reconciliation, so that loyal persons, white or black, may be protected, and that the Republic may live. Here, in the national capital, we begin the real work of Reconstruction, by which the Union will be consolidated forever.

The amendment of Mr. Dixon was rejected,--Yeas 11, Nays 34. The Senators voting in the affirmative were Mr. Anthony, Mr. Buckalew, Mr. Dixon, Mr. Doolittle, Mr. Fogg, Mr. Foster, Mr. Hendricks, Mr. Nesmith, Mr. Patterson, Mr. Riddle, and Mr. Willey.

The bill then passed the Senate,--Yeas 32, Nays 13. On the next day it passed the other House, and, being vetoed by President Johnson, it passed both Houses by a two-thirds vote, so that it became a law.[75]

PROHIBITION OF PEONAGE.

RESOLUTION AND REMARKS IN THE SENATE, JANUARY 3, 1867.

January 3d, in the Senate, Mr. Sumner introduced the following resolution:--

“_Resolved_, That the Committee on the Judiciary be directed to consider if any further legislation is needed to prevent the enslavement of Indians in New Mexico or any system of peonage there, and especially to prohibit the employment of the army of the United States in the surrender of persons claimed as peons.”

Mr. Sumner then called attention to facts showing the necessity of action. He said:--

I think you will be astonished, when you learn that the evidence is complete, showing in a Territory of the United States the existence of slavery which a proclamation of the President has down to this day been powerless to root out. During the life of President Lincoln, I more than once appealed to him, as head of the Executive, to expel this evil from New Mexico. The result was a proclamation, and also definite orders from the War Department; but, in the face of proclamation and definite orders, the abuse has continued, and, according to official evidence, it seems to have increased.

Mr. Sumner here read from the Report of the Commissioner on Indian Affairs, also from the Report of a Special Agent, containing the correspondence of army officers, including an order from the Assistant Inspector General in New Mexico to aid in the rendition of fugitive peons to their masters, and then remarked:--

The special Indian agent who reports this correspondence very aptly adds:--

“The aid of Congress is invoked to stop the practice.”

I hope the Department of War will communicate directly with General Carleton, under whose sanction this order has been made, and I hope that our Committee on the Judiciary will consider carefully if further legislation is not needed to meet this case. A Presidential proclamation has failed; orders of the War Department have failed; the abuse continues, and we have a very learned officer in the army of the United States undertaking to vindicate it.

The reference was changed to the Committee on Military Affairs, and the resolution was adopted. Subsequently, Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, reported a bill to abolish and forever prohibit the system of peonage in the Territory of New Mexico and other parts of the United States, which became a law.[76]

PRECAUTION AGAINST THE REVIVAL OF SLAVERY.

REMARKS IN THE SENATE, ON A RESOLUTION AND THE REPORT OF THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE, JANUARY 3 AND FEBRUARY 20, 1867.

January 3, 1867, in the Senate, Mr. Sumner introduced the following resolution:--

“_Resolved_, That the Committee on the Judiciary be directed to consider if any action of Congress be needed, either in the way of legislation or of a supplementary Amendment to the Constitution, to prevent the sale of persons into slavery for a specified term by virtue of a decree of court.”

In its consideration, he called attention to cases like the following:--

“PUBLIC SALE. The undersigned will sell at the court-house door, in the city of Annapolis, at twelve o’clock, M., on Saturday, 8th December, 1866, a negro man named Richard Harris, for six months, convicted at the October term, 1866, of the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court, for larceny, and sentenced by the Court to be sold as a slave.

“Terms of sale, cash.

“WM. BRYAN, “_Sheriff Anne Arundel County_.

“December 3, 1866.”

He then remarked:--

It seems to me, Sir, that these cases throw upon Congress the duty at least of inquiry; and I wish the Committee on the Judiciary, from which proceeded the Constitutional Amendment abolishing Slavery, would enlighten us on the validity of these proceedings, and the necessity or expediency of further action to prevent their repetition. I do not know that the Civil Rights Bill, which was afterward passed, may not be adequate to meet these cases; but I am not clear on that point.

When the Constitutional Amendment was under consideration, I objected positively to the phraseology. I thought it an unhappy deference to an original legislative precedent at an earlier period of our history. I regretted infinitely that Congress was willing, even indirectly, to sanction any form of slavery. But the Senate supposed that the phrase “involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,” was simply applicable to ordinary imprisonment. At the time I feared that it might be extended so as to cover some form of slavery. It seems now that it is so extended, and I wish the Committee to consider whether the remedy can be applied by Act of Congress, or whether we must not go further and expurgate that phraseology from the text of the Constitution itself.

After remarks by Mr. Reverdy Johnson and Mr. Creswell, of Maryland, Mr. Sumner said:--

The remarks of the Senator from Maryland [Mr. JOHNSON] seem to justify entirely the resolution I have brought forward. I have simply called attention to what was already notorious, but with a view to action. I am not sure, that, under the Constitutional Amendment, this abuse may not be justified, and I desire to have the opinion of the Committee after ample consideration.

This, Sir, is not the first time in which incidents like this have occurred. I remember, that, many years ago, when I first came into this Chamber, the good people whom I represent were shocked at reading that four colored sailors of Massachusetts had been sold into slavery in the State of Texas. I did what I could to obtain their liberation, but without success. I applied directly to the Senator from Texas at that time, who will be remembered by many as the able General Rusk, beside whom I sat on the other side of the Chamber. He openly vindicated the power of the court to make such a sale, and I have never heard anything of those poor victims from that time to this. Under the operation of the Constitutional Amendment I trust they are now emancipated; but I am not sure of that, since they are in Texas.

The resolution was adopted. Subsequently Mr. Creswell moved the printing of a bill, introduced by him at the preceding session, to protect children of African descent from being enslaved in violation of the Constitution of the United States.

February 20th, Mr. Poland, from the Committee on the Judiciary, to whom this bill had been referred, reported that its object was accomplished by the Civil Rights and the Habeas Corpus Acts, and that no further legislation was needed. In a conversation that ensued, Mr. Sumner said:--

It strikes me the practical question is, whether recent incidents have not admonished us that there is a disposition to evade the statute, and under the protection of State laws----

MR. TRUMBULL [of Illinois]. That is the very thing the statute guards against.

MR. SUMNER. But the statute was not effective to prevent those incidents.

MR. TRUMBULL. Will any statute, if it is not executed?

MR. SUMNER. But when apprised of an evasion, I ask whether it is not expedient to counteract that evasion specifically and precisely, so that there shall be no possible excuse? Liberty is won by these anxious trials. Those who represent her are accustomed to take case by case and difficulty by difficulty,--overcoming them, if they can. Secure first the general principle, as in the Constitutional Amendment,--then legislation as extensive or minute as the occasion requires. Let it be “precept upon precept, line upon line,” so long as any such outrage can be shown.

I would not seem pertinacious, though I do not know that I can err by any pertinacity on a question of Human Liberty. I feel that we are painfully admonished, by incidents occurring under our very eyes, that we ought to do something to tighten that great Constitutional Amendment. It contains in its text words which I regret. I regretted them at the time; I proposed to strike them out; and now they return to plague the inventor. There should have been no recognition in the Constitutional Amendment of any possibility of Slavery. The reply is, that the Amendment, if properly interpreted, does not recognize the possibility of Slavery being legal in any just sense. But it is misinterpreted,--has been so in an adjoining State; and who can tell that it will not be so now in every one of the Southern States? I am sorry that the Committee has not reported the bill.

The Senate last night passed a bill, on the report of my colleague, to prohibit slavery and peonage in New Mexico. Under the Constitutional Amendment, I take it, that bill was unnecessary, it was superfluous. But we have found a difficulty in that Territory. There has been outrage; slavery in some form exists there; and consequently my colleague was right, when he brought his Committee to the conclusion that they must meet it by specific enactment. Where the abuse appears, we must root it out. That is Radicalism. So long as a human being is held as a slave anywhere under this flag, from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, there is occasion for your powerful intervention; and if there is ambiguity or failure in existing statutes, then you must supply another statute.

PROTECTION AGAINST THE PRESIDENT.

SPEECHES IN THE SENATE, ON AN AMENDMENT TO THE TENURE OF OFFICE BILL, JANUARY 15, 17, AND 18, 1867.

This session of Congress was occupied by efforts to restrain and limit the appointing power of the President. The differences between the President and Congress increased daily. Among measures considered by Congress was a bill to regulate the tenure of offices, known as the Tenure of Office Bill.

January 15th, Mr. Sumner moved to amend this bill by adding a new section:--

“_And be it further enacted_, That all officers or agents, except clerks of Departments, now appointed by the President or by the head of any Department, whose salary or compensation, derived from fees or otherwise, exceeds one thousand dollars annually, shall be nominated by the President and appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate; and the term of all such officers or agents who have been appointed since the first day of July, 1866, either by the President or by the head of a Department, without the advice and consent of the Senate, shall expire on the last day of February, 1867.”

Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont, who reported the pending bill, opposed the amendment. Mr. Sumner followed.

MR. PRESIDENT,--The proposition I offer now I moved last week on another bill, in a slightly different form, but it was substantially the same. I did not then understand that there was objection to it in principle. It was opposed as not germane to the bill in hand; or, if germane, its adoption on that bill was supposed in some way to embarrass its passage. On that ground, as I understand, it was opposed,--not on its merits. Senators who spoke against it avowed their partiality for it, if I understood them aright,--declared, that, if they had an opportunity on any proper bill, they would vote for it.

Well, Sir, I move it on another bill, to which I believe all will admit it is entirely germane. There is no suggestion that it is not germane. It is completely in order. But the objection of the Senator from Vermont, if I understand, is, that it may interfere with the symmetry of his bill, and introduce an element which he, who has that bill in charge and now conducts it so ably, had not intended to introduce. Very well, Sir; that may be said; but I do not think it a very strong objection.

The Senator is mistaken, if he supposes that the amendment would endanger the bill. Just the contrary. It would give the bill strength.

MR. HOWE. Merit.

MR. SUMNER. It would give it both strength and merit,--because it is a measure which grows out of the exigency of the hour. His bill on a larger scale is just such a measure. It grows out of the present exigency, and this is its strength and its merit. We shall pass that, if we do pass it,--and I hope we shall,--to meet a crisis. We all feel its necessity. But the measure which I now move grows equally out of the present exigency. If ingrafted on the bill, it will be, like the original measure, to meet the demands of the moment. It will be because without it we shall leave something undone which we ought to do.

Now, I ask Senators, is there any one who doubts that under the circumstances such a provision ought to pass? Is there any one who doubts, after what we have seen on a large scale, that the President, for the time being at least, ought to be deprived of the extraordinary function he has exercised? He has announced in public speech that he meant to “kick out of office” present incumbents; and it was in this proceeding, that, on his return to Washington, he undertook to remove incumbents wherever he could. It cannot be doubted, Sir, that we owe protection to these incumbents, so far as possible. This is an urgent duty. If the Senator from Vermont will tell me any other way in which this can be promoted successfully, I shall gladly follow him; but until then I must insist that it shall share the fortunes of the bill, “pursue the triumph and partake the gale.” If the bill succeeds, then let this measure, which is as good as the bill.

But the suggestion is made, that the amendment should be matured in a committee. Why, Sir, it is very simple. Any one can mature it who applies his mind to it for a few moments. It has already been before the Senate for several days, discussed once, twice, three times, I think, not elaborately, but still discussed, so that its merits have become known; and beside its discussion in open Senate, I am a witness that it has been canvassed in conversation much. Many Senators have applied their minds to it, and I may say that in offering it now I speak not merely for myself, but for others, and the proposition, in the form in which I present it, is not merely my own, but it is that of many others, to whose careful supervision it has been submitted. Therefore I say that it is matured, so far as necessary, and there is no reason why the Senate should not act upon it. Why postpone what is in itself so essentially good? Why put off to some unknown future the chance of applying the remedy to an admitted abuse? Is there any one here who says that this is not an abuse, that here is not a tyrannical exercise of power? No one. Then, Sir, let us apply the remedy. This is the first chance we can get. Take it.

Mr. Fessenden was “not disposed to overturn a system which has recommended itself to the experience of the Government, recommended itself to the most approved mode of doing the business of the country for years, with which no fault whatever has been found in its practical operation, simply because at this time we are in this ‘muss’ with regard to appointments.” He was “opposed utterly to the amendment.” Mr. Sumner replied:--

It is very easy to answer an argument, when you begin by exaggerating consequences. Now, Sir, the Senator warns us against my proposition, because it would impose so much business upon the Senate. Is that true? He reminds us of the number of appointments we should be obliged to act upon in the Internal Revenue Department. How many? The assistant assessors. What others? Those can be counted.

MR. CRAGIN. Inspectors under the internal revenue laws.

MR. SUMNER. Inspectors also: those can all be counted. He then reminds us of the officers in the custom-houses. They can all be counted. It would not act on clerks in the custom-houses; it acts only, if at all, on officers of the custom-houses, in a certain sense superior, some with considerable responsibility. They can all be counted. It is easy to say that we shall be obliged to deal with many thousands; but I say, nevertheless, they can all be counted.