Part 19

But this tax will be positively oppressive to coal-purchasers in New England, to say nothing of New York. Nature has denied coal to this region of country,--or rather, Nature has placed the natural supply for this region outside our political jurisdiction. It is in Nova Scotia, on the other side of our boundary line. Coal in abundance is there, easily accessible by water, and therefore transported at comparatively small cost. Another part of our country has a different supply. On the other side of the mountain-ridge separating the sea-coast from the valleys of the West is an infinite coal-field, the source of untold wealth, which, beginning in the mountains and filling West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania, stretches through the valley of the Ohio, enriching the States that border upon it, and then, crossing the Mississippi, extends through other States beyond, even to Colorado. This is the greatest coal-field, as it is also the greatest corn-field, in the world. It is magnificent beyond comparison. This is the natural resource for the immense region west of the Alleghanies. But why should New England, which has a natural resource comparatively near at home, be compelled at great sacrifice to drag her coal from these distant supplies?

I hear of complaint at Pittsburg, where the price of coal is only two dollars a ton, currency. But imported coal in New England costs at the mine two dollars a ton, gold. Add three or four dollars a ton for freight. And now it is proposed to pile on this a duty of more than two dollars, currency. If Pittsburg complains of coal at two dollars a ton, what must Boston say, when you make it nine dollars? Is this just? Is it practically wise? But I forget: there can be no wisdom without justice.

If it be said that the interests of New England are protected even by the bill before the Senate, I have to say in reply, that no interest of hers is protected at the expense of the rest of the country. All that we ask is fair play. Let it be shown that there is any part of the country which will suffer from the favor accorded to New England as her coal-purchasers must suffer from the favor accorded to the distant coal-owners of the mountains, and I will do what I can to see justice done. I ask nothing but that justice which I am always willing to accord. We constitute parts of one country with common interests, and the prosperity of each is bound up in the prosperity of all.

It is said that this proposed tax will be of advantage to the Cumberland coal in the mountains of Maryland. Perhaps; but not to any considerable extent. I understand that not more than 60,000 tons of Nova Scotia coal are imported in competition with that of Cumberland. This is mainly at Providence, where it is used in the manufacture of iron. But the Cumberland coal is so completely adapted to glassworks, railways, ocean steamships, blacksmiths’ forges, that it may be said to command the market exclusively. Nature has given to it this monopoly. Why not be content?

There are peculiar reasons why coal should be cheap, whether viewed as a necessary or as a motive power. As a necessary, it enters into the comforts of life; as a motive power, it is the substitute for water-power. What reason can you give for a tax on motive power from coal which is not equally strong for a tax on motive power from water, unless it be that one is “black” and the other is “white”? I plead that you shall not needlessly add to the public burden in a particular portion of the country. I have alluded to the cheapness of coal at Pittsburg. In other places it is cheaper still. At Pomeroy, in Ohio, it is $1.40 a ton, and at Cumberland itself it is $1.50 a ton, always currency; and yet New England is to pay $1.50 tax, gold, being more than the coal is worth to its producer, besides the large cost of transportation.

Next after the industry of a people is cheap coal, as an element of national prosperity. Without it, even industry will lose much of its activity and variety. It is coal that has vitalized and quickened all the mighty energies of England. From coal have come all the various products of her manufactories, and these again have furnished the freights for her ships, so that she has become not only a great manufacturing nation, but also a great commercial nation. Coal is the author of all this. Coal is the fuel under the British pot which makes it boil. It ought to do the same for us, and even more, if you will let it. Therefore I end as I began,--tax coal as little as possible.

In reply especially to Mr. Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, and Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, Mr. Sumner said:--

…

Now, without following the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. DAVIS] in that proposition, I do insist, that, on articles of prime necessity, we should reduce taxation where we can. Therefore, when the Senator from Ohio tells me, that, if my proposition is adopted, we shall lose a certain amount of revenue derived from coal, I have an easy reply. Very well,--let us lose that amount of revenue derived from coal. You ought not to obtain it; coal ought not to be one of your taxed articles. So far as possible, coal should be cheap. That is the proposition with which I began and ended; and if I do not impress that upon the Senate, I certainly fail in what I attempted.

MR. GRIMES [of Iowa]. Why should it be cheap?

MR. SUMNER. Because it enters into the necessaries of life, and because it is a motive power that works our manufactories.

…

I say that the article is necessary to us in New England. It enters into our daily life,--into the economies of every house, into the expenses of every citizen. It enters, therefore, into the welfare of the community; and you cannot tax coal without making the whole community feel it, whether rich or poor. Every poor man feels it. If I said the rich man felt it, you would reply, “That makes no difference; let him feel it.” I insist that every poor man feels it; and I insist further, that all who are interested in the manufactures of the country necessarily feel it,--not only producers and owners, but all who use the products of their looms. I say, that, as a motive power, it should be made cheap and kept cheap. Now the apparent policy is, to make it dear and keep it dear.

MR. HENDRICKS [of Indiana]. I like the Senator’s argument just where he is now; but I wish to ask him whether, if by a tariff you raise the price of every yard of cheap woollen goods and cheap cotton goods, it is not a direct tax on the labor of the poor man of the West, who has to buy them?

MR. CRESWELL [of Maryland, to Mr. Sumner]. That is the application of your argument.

MR. SUMNER. The Senator from Maryland says that is the application of my argument. Pardon me, not at all; because the tax on cotton and on woollen goods--I have had very little to do with imposing any such tax--is not oppressive on any part of the country, nor does it bear hard on the constituents of the Senator, or on the constituents of any Senator on this floor; whereas the increase of the tax on coal will bear hard upon a whole community, and upon all its interests; and that is the precise difference between the two cases.

The Senator from Ohio seemed to speak of this with perfect tranquillity, as if there were nothing in it oppressive, or even open to criticism. He thought we might tax coal as we tax any other article. I differ from him. I do not think you should tax coal as you tax other articles; and, further, I do not think you should impose any tax bearing with special hardship, so as to be something akin to injustice, on any particular part of our country. That is my answer to the argument of the Senator from Maryland, and to the inquiry of the Senator from Indiana.

Mr. Creswell replied warmly, criticizing Mr. Sumner, saying, among other things,--

“The distinguished Senator from Massachusetts has treated us to a Free-Trade speech in the Senate of the United States. The commentary of the Senator from Indiana was just and correct; it was a deduction that he had a right logically to make; and I tell the Senator from Massachusetts that his course in the Senate to-day is in its effects a better Free-Trade speech than has ever been made in any of the Middle States during the last ten years.”

Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, united with Mr. Sumner.

The amendment was lost,--Yeas 11, Nays 25.

A SINGLE TERM FOR THE PRESIDENT, AND CHOICE BY DIRECT VOTE OF THE PEOPLE.

REMARKS IN THE SENATE, ON AN AMENDMENT OF THE NATIONAL CONSTITUTION, FEBRUARY 11, 1867.

The Senate had under consideration an Amendment to the National Constitution, reported by the Judiciary Committee, as follows:--

“No person elected President or Vice-President, who has once served as President, shall afterward be eligible to either office.”

Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, thought that the words “who has once served as President” should be struck out. Mr. Williams, of Oregon, suggested: “No person who has once served as President shall afterward be eligible to either office.” Mr. Poland, of Vermont, moved, as a substitute, the following:--

“The President and Vice-President of the United States shall hereafter be chosen for the term of six years; and no person elected President or Vice-President, who has once served as President, shall afterward be eligible to either office.”

Mr. Sumner said:--

I agree with the Senator from Maryland [Mr. JOHNSON], so far as I was able to follow his remarks. It seems to me it would be better, if the term of the President were six years rather than four. I regretted that the report of the Committee did not embody such a change. I am therefore thankful to the Senator from Vermont, who by his motion gives us an opportunity to vote on that proposition.

But allow me to go a little further, and there I should like the attention of my friend opposite [Mr. JOHNSON]. If the term of the President is to be six years, should we not abolish the office of Vice-President? Are you willing to take the chance of a Vice-President becoming President a few weeks after the beginning of the six years’ term, and then serving out that full term? We all know, in fact, that the Vice-President is nominated often as a sort of balance to the President. It is too much with a view to certain political considerations, and possibly to aid the election of the President, rather than to secure the services of one in all respects competent to be President. Suppose, therefore, we have a President only, and leave to Congress the provision for a temporary filling of the office, as now on the disability of the President and Vice-President.

I throw out these views without making any motion. I submit that we do not meet all the difficulties of the present hour, unless we go still further and provide against abnormal troubles from the nomination of a Vice-President selected less with reference to fitness than to transient political considerations. As my friend says, he is thrown in for a make-weight, and then, in the providence of God, the make-weight becomes Chief Magistrate. It seems to me important, that, if possible, we should provide against the recurrence of such difficulties.

But suppose the proposition of the Committee to stand as reported, I am brought then to the question raised by the Senator from Maine [Mr. FESSENDEN], whether it should be applicable to a Vice-President in the providence of God called to be President. On that point I am obliged to go with the Committee. It seems to me that the evil we wish to guard against in the case of the President naturally arises in the case of a Vice-President who becomes President. I say this on the reason of the case, and then I say it on our melancholy experience. The three cases in our history which distinctly teach the necessity of the Amendment before us are of three Vice-Presidents who in the providence of God became Presidents. But for these three cases, nobody would have thought of change. It is to meet the difficulties found to arise from a Vice-President becoming President, and then hearkening to the whisperings and temptations which unhappily visit a person in his situation, that we have been led to contemplate the necessity of change. I hope, therefore, if the proposition of the Senator from Vermont [Mr. POLAND] is not taken as a substitute, that the words of the Committee will be preserved.

I am disposed to go still further. I would have an additional Amendment,--one that has not appeared in this discussion, though not unknown in this Chamber, for distinguished Senators who once occupied these seats have more than once advocated it,--I mean an Amendment providing for the election of President directly by the people, without the intervention of Electoral Colleges. Such an Amendment would give every individual voter, wherever he might be, a positive weight in the election. It would give minorities in distant States an opportunity of being heard in determining who shall be Chief Magistrate. Now they are of no consequence. Such an Amendment would be of peculiar value. It would be in harmony, too, with those ideas, belonging to the hour, of the unity of the Republic. I know nothing that would contribute more to bring all the people, to mass all the people, into one united whole, than to make the President directly eligible by their votes. But no such proposition is before us, nor is there any such proposition as I have alluded to with regard to the office of Vice-President. I hope, however, that these subjects will not be allowed to pass out of mind, and that some time or other we shall be able to act on them in a practical way.

After debate, the question was dropped without any vote.

RECONSTRUCTION AT LAST WITH COLORED SUFFRAGE AND PROTECTION AGAINST REBEL INFLUENCE.

SPEECHES IN THE SENATE, ON THE BILL TO PROVIDE FOR THE MORE EFFICIENT GOVERNMENT OF THE REBEL STATES, FEBRUARY 14, 19, AND 20, 1867.

The subject of Reconstruction was uppermost during the present session, sometimes in Constitutional Amendments and sometimes in measures of legislation.

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February 13th, the Senate received from the House of Representatives a bill “to provide for the more efficient government of the Insurrectionary States,” which, after various changes, was finally passed under the title of “An Act to provide for the more efficient government of the Rebel States,” being the most important measure of legislation in the history of Reconstruction. As this bill came from the House it was a military bill, creating five military districts in the South, without any requirement with regard to suffrage, and with no exclusion of Rebels. Mr. Bingham, of Ohio, and Mr. Blaine, of Maine, announced in the House amendments requiring in the new constitutions “that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all male citizens of the United States twenty-one years old and upward, without regard to race, color, or previous condition of servitude, except such as may be disfranchised for participating in the late Rebellion or for felony at Common Law.” But they had not been able to obtain a direct vote; nor was there any exclusion of Rebels in their propositions. Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, said:--

“The amendment of the gentleman from Maine [Mr. BLAINE] lets in a vast number of Rebels and shuts out nobody. All I ask is, that, when the House comes to vote upon that amendment, it shall understand that the adoption of it would be an entire surrender of those States into the hands of the Rebels.”

About this time the House passed what was known as the Louisiana Bill, being a bill providing for the reconstruction of that State, with all necessary machinery, not unlike the bill introduced on the first day of the preceding session, “to enforce the guaranty of a republican form of government in certain States whose governments have been usurped or overthrown.”[83] The two bills together would have made a complete system of Protection, and the second, when extended to all the States, a complete system of Reconstruction.

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February 14th, Mr. Sumner said:--

I am in favor of each of these bills. Each is excellent. One is the beginning of a true Reconstruction; the other is the beginning of a true Protection. Now in these Rebel States there must be Reconstruction and there must be Protection. Both must be had, and neither should be antagonized with the other. The two should go on side by side,--guardian angels of the Republic. Never was Congress called to consider measures of more vital importance. I am unwilling to discriminate between the two. I accept them both with all my heart, and am here now to sustain them by my constant presence and vote.

But, Sir, what we know as the Louisiana Bill came into this Chamber first; it was first made familiar to us; it has precedence. On that account it seems to me it ought to come up first, it ought to lead the way. I am not going to say that this is better than the other, or that the other is better than this. Each is good; and yet, I doubt not, each is susceptible of amendment. The Senator from Maine [Mr. FESSENDEN] has already foreshadowed an important amendment on the bill reported by the Committee of which he is Chairman; I have already sent to the Chair an amendment which at the proper time I may move on the other bill. But I desire to make one remark with regard to amendments. I am so much in earnest for the passage of these bills, that I shall cheerfully forego any amendment of my own, if I find it to be the general sentiment of those truly in earnest for the bills that we ought not to attempt amendments. If, however, amendments seem to be preferable, then I shall propose those I have sent to the Chair.

February 15th, the Senate began the consideration of the Military Bill, continuing in session until three o’clock in the morning of the next day. Speeches and motions showed great differences on the subject. Some were content with a purely military bill, contemplating simply the protection of the people in the Rebel States. Others wished to add measures of Reconstruction; and here again there were differences. Some were content with the requirement of suffrage without distinction of color in the new constitutions, making no provision for the exclusion of Rebels, leaving the organization in the hands of the existing electors, and providing, that, on the adoption of the Constitutional Amendment, and of a State constitution securing equal suffrage, any such State should be entitled to representation in Congress.

In the hope of putting an end to these differences, a caucus of Republican Senators was held the next forenoon, when a committee was appointed, as follows: Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, Mr. Howard, of Michigan, Mr. Harris, of New York, Mr. Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, and Mr. Sumner, to consider the pending bill and amendments and report to the caucus. The committee withdrew from the Senate, leaving a Senator making a long and elaborate speech, and proceeded with their work. The House bill was taken as the basis, and amended in several particulars, to which Mr. Sumner afterwards alluded in the Senate. An effort by Mr. Sumner to require equal suffrage found no favor; nor did what was known as the Louisiana Bill, which he proposed as a substitute; nor an effort to exclude Rebels. He felt it his duty to say to the committee, that, on the making of the report, he should appeal to the caucus, which he did. The caucus, by 15 Yeas to 13 Nays,--Senators standing to be counted,--voted to require equal suffrage in the choice of the constitutional conventions; also in the new constitutions, and in their ratification. But the bill was left without any exclusion of Rebels, and with the declaration, that, doing these things and ratifying the Amendment to the National Constitution, a State should be entitled to representation in Congress. In these latter respects it seemed to Mr. Sumner highly objectionable.

The vote of the caucus to require suffrage without distinction of color seemed a definitive settlement of that question for the Rebel States. At that small meeting, and by those informal proceedings, this great act was accomplished. For Mr. Sumner it was an occasion of especial satisfaction, as his long-continued effort was crowned with success. These volumes show how, by letter, speech, resolution, and bill, he had constantly maintained this duty of Congress. His bill, introduced on the first day of the preceding session, “to enforce the guaranty of a republican form of government in certain States whose governments have been usurped or overthrown,” contained the specific requirement now adopted, while the debates on the Louisiana Bill,[84] the Colorado Bill,[85] the Nebraska Bill,[86] and the Constitutional Amendment,[87] attested his endeavor to apply this requirement.

During the evening session, Mr. Sherman, chairman of the caucus committee, moved the bill accepted by the caucus, as a substitute for the House bill. It was understood that it would receive the support of the Republican Senators without further amendment, and, as they constituted a large majority, its passage was sure. Under these circumstances, Mr. Sumner left the Chamber at midnight. The vote was taken a little after six o’clock, Sunday morning,--Yeas 29, Nays 10.

In the other House, the substitute of the Senate was the occasion of decided differences, not unlike those in the Senate on the House bill. Many felt that the Unionists were left without adequate protection. Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, after saying that the Senate had sent “an amendment which contains everything else but protection,” exclaimed: “Pass this bill and you open the flood-gates of misery,--you disgrace, in my judgment, the Congress of the United States.” Mr. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, said: “My objection to the proposed substitute of the Senate is fundamental, it is conclusive. It provides, if not in terms, at least in fact, by the measures which it proposes, to reconstruct those State governments at once through the agency of disloyal men.” Mr. Williams, of Pennsylvania, said: “We sent to the Senate a proposition to meet the necessities of the hour, which was Protection without Reconstruction, and it sends back another, which is Reconstruction without Protection.” At length, on motion of Mr. Stevens, the House refused to concur in the amendment of the Senate, and asked a committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses.

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February 19th, the excitement of the House was again transferred to the Senate, where Mr. Williams, of Oregon, moved that the Senate insist upon its amendment, and agree to the conference. An earnest debate ensued, in which Mr. Sumner favored the conference committee, and also explained what he wished to accomplish by the bill. Mr. Williams withdrew his motion, when Mr. Sherman moved that the Senate insist on its amendment to the House bill and that the House be informed thereof. Mr. Trumbull sustained the motion. Mr. Sumner followed.